Urban Update January 2021 by Urban Update

Setting The Agenda For Tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cities

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UrbanUpdate Volume VI, Issue IX

January 2021

POWERING AHEAD IN 2021

Reshaping our Urban Future, Lessons Learnt from COVID-19

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ISSN 2349-6266 RNI No DELENG/2014/57384

Setting The Agenda For Tomorrow’s Cities

UrbanUpdate Volume VI, Issue IX

January 2021

POWERING AHEAD IN 2021

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Rajiv Agarwal | Editor-In-Chief | dg@aiilsg.org

Step into the new decade with hope As we step into a new year and a new decade, mankind is armed with new knowledge and tools. Cities must use these learnings to transform themselves into more liveable, inclusive, and sustainable spaces. Among the foremost learnings could be related to public health. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of cities across the globe with little exception; the rich and prosperous ones appeared more vulnerable. These countries with more robust public health systems, technologies and funding, buckling under the strain of the pandemic as much or even more than less advanced nations, will remain a mystery for some time. However, all countries have realised the need for better equipped public healthcare facilities, constant surveillance, and effective responses. A critical element of an effective public health system will be citizen participation. There must be constant efforts to update and upgrade citizen awareness, and to build appropriate response mechanisms. Several countries such as South Korea and Japan had seen greater success in containing the spread of the corona infection. There could be learnings for all from there. And finally, India has created new standards and records for rapid development, trials, and production of vaccines. The corona vaccine was rolled out in record time compared to development time frames for vaccines in the past. This can set new benchmarks for pharma companies worldwide. Now, with two vaccines available and inoculations having started, the next several months will see this activity occupying centre stage in our cities. It calls for meticulous planning and management of distribution systems to reach all areas of the city. Then, identifying, enrolling and administering the vaccine to the selected target groups will be a big task too. This entire activity will again test the capabilities of city administrations and the public healthcare infrastructure. Urban local bodies have already experienced several new dimensions to their work during the pandemic. Door-to-door surveys, contact tracing, setting up temporary care centres for the affected, beefing up services in state-run hospitals, tying up with private healthcare centres, monitoring quarantine procedures, and so on. All this while keeping the routine service delivery activities in shape and ticking. Cities faced several other challenges during the months of the lockdown. Among them were the difficulties faced by migrant labourers. These workers who work to build our cities and their systems need special focus to reduce their vulnerabilities and pains during such situations. Large numbers of NGOs and citizens, aided by local bodies, rose to the occasion to meet the needs of the stranded migrants and mitigate their pain and distress. These efforts were noted and applauded all over. These learnings must enable cities craft appropriate policies for fair, just and equitable responses in times of crisis. Armed with these experiences and learnings, we can enter the new decade with greater hope and confidence, that a better future awaits us all.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

Quotes

Urbanisation was taking place rapidly but our cities were not equipped at the same speed to deal with its after effect which led to a huge gap between the demand for urban infrastructure and its delivery

We throw money at an outbreak, and when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over, we forget about it and do nothing to prevent the next one. This is dangerously short-sighted, and frankly difficult to understand. History tells us that this will not be the last pandemic, and epidemics are a fact of life

Narendra Modi Prime Minister of India

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus Director-General, WHO

PIN POINT Even if weather disasters for one year cannot be directly linked to climate change and a longer period needs to be studied to assess their significance, these extreme values fit with the expected consequences of a decades-long warming trend for the atmosphere and oceans Ernst Rauch Chief Climate and Geo-scientist, Munich Re, Germany

Our findings suggest that poor air quality could be responsible for a considerable burden of pregnancy loss in South Asia, providing further justification for urgent action to tackle dangerous levels of pollution

Dr Tao Xue Peking University, China

BUZZ UN Development

UN-Habitat

Antonio Guterres

United Nations ESCAP

@ UNDP

@UNHABITAT

@antonioguterres

@UNESCAP

2020 was a difficult year for everyone. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities and threw into sharp relief the challenges we face as a human family. It also showed us that we are stronger together

Sustainable urban & regional planning is one of the most important tools we have to ensure livable & sustainable cities & communities. Sustainable cities will play a vital role in reducing the global carbon footprint from transport, energy & construction

We cannot go back to the old normal of inequality and fragility. Instead, we must step towards a safer, more sustainable path. With decisions today setting our course for decades to come, we must make COVID-19 recovery and Climate Action two sides of the same coin

AsiaPacific has a way to go in meeting safe, orderly and regular migration. Policies should be gender-responsive, people-centred and promote family life, ensuring access to protection & education for children

January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

Content

Inside Volume 6, Issue 9

January 2021

ARTICLEs

Pin Point Newscan

37 46

City Image Urban Agenda

Powering ahead in 2021

Cities need to accommodate people displaced by climate change

The new year has brought with it new hopes and aspirations for everyone. These could be challenging times for governments, businesses, economies, people in general, and cities. But, as the saying goes, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Cities are fine examples of this old maxim as they always sail through hurdles and emerge stronger after a catastrophe

The world is fast waking up to the problem of people displaced by climate change. People opting for aspirational migration are as such, moving into cities from villages. With more and more people being forcefully displaced for various reasons including development projects, conflicts and climate change, the additional population will be huge for the cities to manage

Metro rail projects: Benefits & challenges Metro Rail has proved to be one of the most desirable infrastructures for the cities. The National Metro Rail Policy 2017 specifies that all cities with over 20 lakh population could look for Mass Rapid Transit Systems (MRTS). Among the various modes of MRTS, the metro rail has shown considerable rise in popularity among Indian cities

Leading vision of Nirmal, Aviral Ganga in ‘New Normal’

Reshaping our urban future: Lessons learnt from covid-19 The year 2020 has given human beings the chance to self-reflect on what the universe has revealed. We had never thought of facing such a crisis in the history of our generation. COVID-19 has impacted millions of people worldwide, not only on health but also on economic and social aspects. It has changed the way people live, think and interact amongst themselves. It has caused new adaptive habits, such as working from home, online schools or education system, and so on

6 30

Rethinking urban public mobility post COVID-19 The COVID-19 necessitated lockdown resulted in a severe curtailment in travel. Most daily office-goers worked from home, there was virtually no entertainment-related travel and many shopping-related trips were replaced by ordering online. As a result, streets that were otherwise choked were suddenly devoid of traffic for several months. As things open up, questions arise on whether the old movement patterns will be restored or are we likely to see a new normal

Imperatives of constituting 2nd National Commission on Urbanisation WILL the year 2021 be a secure future for all of us living in the cities? This question haunts many of us who have been working in the cities since long. The year 2020 has been a thorough expose of the way how we are developing and imagining our cities

Leading ASEAN cities towards resilient, sustainable pathways

Democratising planning in Indian cities: By the People, for the People, of the People

E-Dialogues

Approach to building resilient cities

Numerograph

India begins world’s largest vaccination drive Government of India has begun the largest vaccination drive in the world in its fight against COVID-19. The jabs of two Indian vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — are being administered to the public as per priorities defined by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Team Urban Update tries to address the various confusions regarding the coronavirus vaccines

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

Leaderspeak | Recovering Cities

Powering ahead in 2021

he world is gradually coming out of the clutches of the Covid-19 Pandemic. With the beginning of the vaccination drive for the priority groups, the future is looking optimistic. Now, the economic and social recovery has started taking place. The stock market which, in general, depicts the sentiments of people about the future, is in green. Cities are gradually starting their activities as planned in the pre-Covid era. The world is entering into normalcy again. It is now up to national and local governments to decide the contours of the new normal in our cities. We must not aspire to see greens just in Sensexes

and Dows of the world and must adapt to green practices in our urban management and governance as well. Keeping the lessons in the rearview mirror, city leaders must forge ahead and plan their policies and programs.

New road to recovery

We have recently witnessed an economic slowdown and its severe impacts on the public at large. According to a news article published in the Bloomberg, deep recessions in the past have been followed by spikes in industrial activity that churned out far more greenhouse gas than was avoided in the downturn. Carbon dioxide emissions dropped 1.4 per cent in 2009, for instance, before rising 5.1

The world is entering into normalcy again. It is now up to national and local governments to decide contours of the new normal in our cities. We must not aspire to see greens just in Sensexes and Dows of the world and adapt to green practices in our urban management and governance as well. Keeping the lessons in the rearview mirror, city leaders must forge ahead and plan their policies and programs

January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

per cent the following year when the economy started to bounce back. This approach cannot be a suitable option today because such an increase in emissions could wreak havoc and cause irreversible climate damage. Understanding the situation, many governments worldwide are implementing climate-friendly policies such as switching to green energy alternatives, strengthening climate policies, creating awareness on the positives of the green and sustainable development approach. The fall in sustainable energy prices gives governments hope that they can drive their development agenda riding on green energy. It has also given optimism to countries that investment in green energy will pay off. India is one of the foremost promoters of this idea, and their decision to promoting renewable energy is trickling down at the local level. Many municipal corporations and councils have decided to reduce their dependence on traditional electricity sources and generate green energy to run urban operations. Green energy has double benefits for local bodies. The first one is that contribution to the larger global agenda of protecting our planet will be fulfilled, and the second, they can reduce their energy expenditure. At present, their spending on electricity hovers between 20 and 30 per cent of their total budget. It varies from a large corporation to a small one. This year, cities can lay their future roadmap and decide on the kind of development they want and ensure that their priorities do not disturb the natural ecosystem.

Ranjit S Chavan President, AIILSG

Innovation to remain in focus

During the pandemic, several innovations, which were practised at a small scale, became mainstream. The sudden rise in digital payment, online meetings, tele-medicines, etc., are examples of how people are lapping up new technological tools. Governments and private players understood the significance of spending on Research and Development (R&D). Even economists are advocating for more spending on R&D and are convinced that it would lead to efficient and sustainable economic growth. Same is true for local governments. They may not have resources to spend on large scale R&D projects, but they must have provisions for allocating some funds to adopt innovation to deal with urban issues. The recovery phase has begun,

and the government has started giving funds to bring back industrial sectors on track. It will be interesting to see how the nations and cities will utilize the funds that aid climate solutions and revive economic activities. The International Energy Agency recently called solar power “the cheapest electricity in history”. It projected that India would build 86 per cent less new coal power capacity than it thought just one year ago. Today, business as usual no longer means a fivefold increase of coal use this century, as was once expected. It means pretty rapid decarbonization, at least by the standards of history, in which hardly any has ever taken place before. There are some initiatives in countries where they are focusing on building resilient and sustainable communities. These initiatives are

not limited to creating green infra and using renewable energy sources. Many cities have rewritten their urban plans to suit the requirements of the day. In the first month of 2021, America will also witness the change of power. President-elect Joe Biden’s recent election victory has given optimism to environmentalists that the USA will also join global efforts to mitigate climate change’s negative impacts and contribute to the Paris Climate Accord. The city of Paris also brings hopes as the city’s mayor has declared that she would transform Paris into a green city by the 2024 Summer Olympics. Her idea for a green city is a city where everyone can breathe fresh air, share an open space and enjoy our lives. The city has decided to give more space to pedestrians and bicycles. Her vision statement talks about this in detail. For instance, the Seine’s banks—urban highways in the heart of Paris—have been converted into promenades. On Sundays, entire neighbourhoods turn into pedestrian zones. And 620 miles of bike lanes will be completed by the end of this year. Wherever possible, in streets, squares and playgrounds, the city is removing asphalt to give space back to nature. Soon, the Eiffel Tower will sit in the middle of a large park. With tree-planting programs, real urban forests will act as the lungs for neighbourhoods across the city. This is a good start, and I am sure many cities would follow the French capital is example. I am quite optimistic that the new wave of hope and aspirations that 2021 has brought will encourage us to plan for a brighter, safer and sustainable urban future.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

ARTICLE | Mass Rapid Transport

Metro Rail Projects Benefits and Challenges Metro Rail has proved to be one of the most desirable infrastructures for the cities. The National Metro Rail Policy 2017 specifies that all cities with over 20 lakh population could look for Mass Rapid Transit Systems (MRTS). Among the various modes of MRTS, the metro rail has shown considerable rise in popularity among Indian cities

hile the first metro rail in the country was the Kolkata Metro commissioned in October 1984 (Esplanade to Bhowanipur, 3.4 kms), it took 18 years for the country to see the next one, when the Delhi Metro (First Part of Phase-1, Shahdara to Tis Hazari, 8.1 kms) started operating in December 2002. However, the success of the Delhi Metro became a game changer and the subsequent 18 years, from 2002 to 2020, witnessed swift growth in

the number of cities that have gotten metro rail projects approved, of which many have started operating as well. As of December 2020, as many as 13 cities have operating Metros covering 678.48 kms and these are in Ahmedabad (6 kms), Bengaluru (42.3 kms), Chennai (45.1 kms), Delhi (347 kms), Gurugram (12.1 kms), Hyderabad (67 kms), Jaipur (11.98 kms), Kochi (25 kms), Kolkata (35.1 kms), Lucknow (22.9 kms), Mumbai (11.4 kms), Nagpur (22.9 kms), and Noida (29.7 kms). These 13 cities are shortly going to add about 500 kms of new lines that are under construction. Another 8

Delhi Metro provides over 50 lakh passenger journeys per day, which otherwise would have crowded the city roads tremendously. Concomitantly, the incidents of traffic accidents also get reduced substantially

January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

cities have their first Metro projects under construction, and these include Agra, Bhopal, Indore, Kanpur, Meerut, Navi Mumbai, Patna and Pune, to be completed in 2021/2022. Many more cities are pursuing to get their first metro projects approved in the coming years, including Coimbatore, Dehradun, Gorakhpur, Guwahati, Jammu, Kozhikode, Prayagraj, Srinagar, Thiruvananthapuram, Varanasi, Vijayawada, and Vishakhapatnam.

Benefits of metro rail systems

Mass Rapid Transit systems such as the Metro Rail facilitate quick, safe and easy movement of people and promote economic activities, social equity, and an enhanced quality of life for the people. Owing to the possibility of seamlessly traversing underground, over ground (viaducts) or at-grade (on surface), the metro rail system connects congested areas with the rest of the city, thus allowing dissipation of the congestion as people reduce the usage of personal transport like cars. An example is the reach of the Delhi Metro to the dense area of Chandni Chowk. In the process, the Metro Rail eases the traffic congestion on the roads. Delhi Metro provides over 50 lakh passenger journeys per day, which otherwise would have crowded the city roads tremendously. Concomitantly, the incidents of traffic accidents also get

Sudhir Krishna Former Secretary (Urban Development) Government of India

reduced substantially. On the economic side, MRTS facilitate equalisation of property values across their influence zone. Small businesses and start-ups can extend the forward and backward linkages far more efficiently, through the MRTS. At the same time, MRTS enhances the overall economic activity and enables less influential segment of the society to participate in the growing economic activities. For instance, women can reach jobs that are at a greater distance, as metro would provide them safe and quick mode of travel between home and work place. Safety in commutation that the MRTS provides benefits not only women but also other vulnerable sections such as the elderly and the physically disabled persons. All metro projects are expected to provide suitable access arrangements at the stations and coaches for the persons with disability (PwD) and separate coaches earmarked for female commuters. The student population is yet another major beneficiary of the metro. MRTS also provides a huge scope for transit-oriented development (TOD). The residential, commercial and leisure spaces are created within walking distance of the metro stations, which reduces the need for using personal transport considerably. In the TOD framework, metro stations could be developed

into a hub for shopping complexes, hotels, cafes, multiplexes, etc. This makes the commutation much easier for the citizens and improves the financial viability of the metro project.

Challenges for a metro project

While the Metro Rail Systems have come to define the cities’ growth and development, they also come with certain challenges that the city and their residents need to handle to ensure a more holistic benefit. For instance, the widespread network of concrete viaducts tends to distort the skyline and the city’s urban form. This can be addressed by taking the metro underground, even though the per kilometre cost would significantly increase. Another challenge is that land acquisition disturbs many people’s livelihoods, especially of low and middle-income groups. This often becomes the source of agitation and unrest from those who lose their land and could slow down the project. Moreover, urban lands are costly. The construction phase disturbs the peace and tranquillity of the residents. Taking the metro underground reduces the need for land acquisition and reduces the people’s inconvenience during construction. Cost of the metro projects itself offers a big challenge, being of the

order of `300 crore per kilometre. Therefore, the metro should be taken up after a careful viability study. A bus-based system (BRTS) should be given serious consideration, where the metro is unviable. Simultaneously, as the metro enhances the property values and boosts up the economic activities, it consequently enhances the revenues of the governments at various levels. Such growth in the revenue receipts should be utilised to fund the metro projects as per the Tax Increment Financing Model. This model enables garnering funds for the infrastructure projects without necessarily raising the tax rates. For instance, the guidance value of the property, if updated regularly, would result in additional revenue. Similarly, the land use in the influence zone of the MRTS/Metro could be changed, wherever possible, to mixed land use, which would give a boost to the local economy, besides giving additional revenue by way of development charges.

Conclusion

Metro rail systems are an excellent infrastructure for the growth and development of large cities and their residents. No doubt they come with many challenges, but those are surmountable with careful planning and management. Handled suitably, metro rails can give a great boost to the city’s social and economic profile.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

ARTICLE | Namami Gange

Leading vision of Nirmal, Aviral Ganga in ‘New Normal’

he Ganga river basin is the largest river basin in India which constitutes 26 per cent of the country’s landmass and currently supports about 43 per cent of the population. The Ganga Basin contributes to 28 per cent of India’s water resources. It also hosts to 97 major urban centres and 4,457 villages. River Ganga is essential for millions of people for their livelihood and economy. With the developmental activities, the River faces critical issue related to pollution and this has accelerated in past few decades and has raised concerns for its existence due to increased anthropogenic activities as well as possible climate change affecting water availability in its catchment. Namami Gange is a flagship programme of the Government of India for rejuvenation of Ganga and its tributaries. National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) is the implementing authority of this programme. Backed by the vision and priority of Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an integrated programme was launched at

a monumental scale of `20,000 crores with assured funding consisting of multi-sectoral, multi-agency and multilevel interventions. A consortium of seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), entrusted with developing a holistic Ganga River Basin Management Plan (GRBMP), brought forward the first version of the plan during 2014-15 consolidating at one place, a body of knowledge on different aspects of the basin, identifying challenges and interventions required for its rejuvenation. The plan envisioned a rejuvenated Ganga, restored of its wholesomeness defined in terms of “Nirmal Dhara - unpolluted flow”, “Aviral Dhara- continuous flow” and ensuring the ecological and geological integrity. Namami Gange is working on an approach drawn from the Integrated River Basin Management Plan with multi-sectoral and multi-agency interventions in a holistic manner. These interventions could broadly be classified into four categories/building blocks. ♦♦ Pollution abatement (Nirmal Ganga), ♦♦ Improving ecology and flow (Aviral

Many cities are intrinsically connected to rivers either through wetlands, water bodies, their drainage patterns or groundwater flow. Rejuvenating water bodies and wetlands can go a long way in reducing the burden on rivers.

January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

Ganga), ♦♦ Strengthen people river connect (Jan Ganga) and ♦♦ Facilitate diversified research, scientific mapping, studies and evidence-based policy formulation (Gyan Ganga) Learning from the experience has taught us that business as usual is not going to work and will not help achieve our mission goals. There is a need to move from city-specific planning to basin planning to make our approach a holistic one. A total of 327 projects have been sanctioned in the Ganga basin at a cost of `29,348.49 crores. 138 projects have been completed and the remaining are at various stages of execution. A total of 153 sewerage infrastructure projects has been sanctioned to create 4,837 million litres per day (MLD) treatment capacity in the Ganga basin and 789.90 MLD capacity has already been created and 5065.37 km sewer network has been laid. In 2014, only 28 projects existed for only 462.85 MLD. Ganga is host to 97 major urban centres. These centres benefit from the river and are also responsible for the deterioration of Ganga’s water quality. It is necessary to focus on urban wastewater management and improve urban governance. Any improvement in the state of the river cannot be achieved without first addressing the issues and drivers in urban areas. Under the mission, the gap analysis of sewerage generation versus the treatment capacity available, along with condition assessment of old infrastructure was done for the 97 important towns along the river Ganga. The creation of sewerage treatment capacity is not enough, but the operation, maintenance and regular monitoring of the created infrastructure are also

Rajiv Ranjan Mishra Director-General National Mission for Clean Ganga

crucial in ensuring the sustainability of the projects. Learning from past, Operation & Maintenance (O&M) has been made an integral part of the projects for 15 years. A paradigm shift took place introducing Hybrid Annuity based Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in sewage infrastructure projects. The model is also endorsed by NITI Aayog now as a reformative approach in the wastewater sector. This reformative Hybrid Annuity Model model extended further by adopting the concept of ‘One City-One Operator’ to improve urban governance and accountability in citywide wastewater management. This approach will help in improving the potential for reuse of by-products of STPs. To cater to Industrial pollution, we have taken some important steps like inventorization and annual inspection through an independent institute. Improvement in compliance has been observed from 51.5 per cent (in the year 2016-18) to 87.45 per cent in the year 18-19. Creation of 31.18 MLD (3 Common Effluent Treatment Plants for Tannery clusters) is also under process. We are also giving thrust upon recycle and reuse of treated wastewater in industries. The flow of the river has its impact on the river’s health and the ecosystem that flourishes in that river. Water is abstracted indiscriminately for various uses, without a thought for the carrying capacity of the river. There is a need for the city to make its contribution towards maintaining the environmental flow of the river. To give the river its right back on its water, the ecological flow was notified for river Ganga in October 2018, formally establishing the right of the river over its water for the first time. This is being implemented successfully

and leading to similar studies for other rivers. But it is the responsibility of cities also to move towards demandside management and reduce the consumption of freshwater for nonpotable use. Encouraging rainwater harvesting, switching to water-efficient fixtures, and maximising the reuse of wastewater are excellent ways of relieving the burden on the already overworked rivers. A comprehensive Biodiversity Conservation, the initiative is in place for mapping and protection of biodiversity hotspot of Ganga. NMCG spearheaded a campaign for conservation of Gangetic Dolphin, the National Aquatic Animal. Hon’ble PM announced Project Dolphin, first for any aquatic animal. A comprehensive scientific program for fisheries conservation has been taken up. To improve flows, it is crucial to take the river as a single system. Many cities are intrinsically connected to rivers either through wetlands, water bodies, their drainage patterns or groundwater flow. Rejuvenating water bodies and wetlands can go a long way in reducing the burden on rivers. To conserve the urban wetlands, a model tool kit for integrated management and rejuvenation of urban wetlands, with a case study of Bhagalpur has been developed. Other than the urban wetlands, we are also working on wetlands in the flood plain of river Ganga. A project has been sanctioned for developing an integrated management plan to conserve 226 wetlands situated in 27 Ganga districts in Uttar Pradesh up to ten kilometres on either side of the river. We know that it has to be people’s mission for it to succeed. If people are not part of it, no mission can achieve its goal. Thus, people river connect is very critical for the rejuvenation of the Ganga River. The community engagement and people’s participation for conserving Ganga in the form of a composite strategy have been adopted for strengthening people river connect through the development of community-based cadres of

different nature, innovative mass awareness campaigns and organizing focused events of varied nature with special attention on involvement of youth and students. These attempts for behavioural changes has been transforming the program for the first time as a People’s movement to connect them with Ganga and work to keep it clean and healthy. Riverfronts have been improved, kept clean with people’s support, and ghats, with improved crematoria constructed. There is a transformation from dirty to beautiful river banks. Several innovative public outreach activities are conducted throughout the year to catalyse and motivate community volunteers and people. With depleting water resources and increased pressure of urbanization, it is pertinent to protect and revitalize the water bodies. City governments need to take responsibility for the stretch of river flowing through or near their boundaries. This cannot happen without integrating a water-centric approach in city planning. Hon’ble PM during NGC meeting also stressed the need for developing a new paradigm for planning for river cities. NMCG is working with NIUA, MoHUA to develop Urban River Management Plan and also initiating a Ganga River Cities Alliance for exchange of knowledge and experience. Ganga River Cities Alliance will be a platform for River cities to come together, discuss, analyse and strategize towards a sustainable but unified vision, for river centric planning and Ganga Rejuvenation. Water centric urban design/ urban river management plan should be a priority of the national policy of urbanisation and should be integrated with master plans of river cities. Having brought this path-breaking approach and achieving several landmarks in these few years, we would like to carry them forward more effectively and try to make it a basinwide program. Moving beyond silos, integrated and collective efforts, hold the key to preserve the sanctity of the river Ganga.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

ARTICLE | Local Governments

Reshaping our urban future: Lessons learnt from COVID-19

The year 2020 has given human beings the chance to self-reflect on what the universe has revealed. We had never thought of facing such a crisis in the history of our generation. COVID-19 has impacted millions of people worldwide, not only on health but also on economic and social aspects. It has changed the way people live, think and interact amongst themselves. It has caused new adaptive habits, such as working from home, on-line schools or education system, and so on

he Chinese characters for the word ‘crisis’ mean danger and opportunity. Despite the challenges we faced caused by COVID-19, the pandemic allowed us to reshape the future we want. COVID-19 provided us the moment to push sustainable development across the finish line. The blue sky that we managed to see and clean air that we were able to breathe in our cities during this pandemic due to less private cars, fewer motorcycles on the streets and absence of industrial activities polluting the cities could be the bright phenomena that it is possible and feasible to transform our lives into a sustainable future. This is the time to act!

Local Governments: Frontrunner in COVID-19 responses

Local governments, the administrative body closest to the people, are the frontrunner in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. They have a crucial role in interpreting national orders during the crisis to be easily understood by ordinary people. They also play a significant part in delivering effective safety net programmes provided by the central governments. It is believed that local governments could perform a key role as the forefront agency of the post-COVID-19 recovery effort. Local governments’ ability to provide and deliver local services to the community during the COVID-19

Local governments’ ability to provide and deliver local services to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic is varied. Local governments that have a clear mandate and authority can respond to the crisis effectively

January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

pandemic is varied. Local governments that have a clear mandate and authority can respond to the crisis effectively. The City of Jeonju, capital of North Jeolla Province in South Korea, came up with its initiative of providing a total of 200 landlords of 500 businesses with a lowered rental fee of around 5-20 per cent for at least three months. This initiative was mentioned by the President of South Korea and scaled up throughout the country. Jeonju is also the first local government in South Korea to provide its vulnerable citizens with basic disaster income to help fight the COVID-19 outbreak and 50,000 people in need were granted such cash support. Efforts made by local governments in responding to COVID-19 and recovering from its impacts were enormous. The effort to flatten the curve and reduce the impacts by local governments can be categorised into three aspects: 1) Developing communication tools to ensure the application of health protocol by people at the local level, 2) Improving health facilities and services, and 3) Minimising the impact on the local economy, social, environmental, and education sectors. The initiatives from various cities and local governments in Asia have been included in the ‘Brief Guide for and Lessons Learnt from Local Governments in Asia on COVID-19’ that was released by the United Cities and Local Governments Asia Pacific (UCLG ASPAC) in March 2020.

Dr Bernadia Irawati Tjandradewi Secretary-General, United Cities and Local Governments Asia Pacific

UCLG ASPAC has captured tremendous initiatives undertaken by local governments in the region and organised a series of webshare sessions to transfer them to other local governments and partners. The initiatives have triggered knowledge transfer and provided strong motivation that “We, local governments, are not alone in this crisis.” The crisis has also created the feeling of solidarity as shown from donations that UCLG ASPAC facilitated. As expressed by Xi’an City in its donation to Iriga, the Philippines, “A friend in need is a friend indeed.” UCLG ASPAC facilitated the donations from Xi’an City, Haikou City, Zhengzhou City, Yiwu City and Guangzhou to UCLG ASPAC members in Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Pakistan.

It is time to reshape our urban future

There are incredible lessons learnt that cities and local governments can take, based on experiences we faced in the past year. Potential losers and winners will depend on how quickly we can adapt to the new normal, a condition we will live with, as result of the existence of COVID-19. The future of living in harmony with nature requires a new design of our cities - the pandemic’s epicentre. There have been several initiatives to improve the local economy such as discounting taxations and launching stimulus packages for companies, having and arranging

digital platforms for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), improving community resilience on the food supply chain, and developing strategies on economic sectors impacted by COVID-19 such as virtual tourism and domestic tourism promotion. These are possible as local governments managed to adjust quickly to the needs of the citizens. Others include optimal usage of public assets and new collaboration between local governments and private sectors, such as hotels, to treat the COVID-19 positive cases. Reform on the local governance system is needed to reshape our future. Horizontal and vertical coordination of different tiers of local governments with central governments on data synchronization, for example, can be seen as one of the effective ways of optimising the safety net programmes and other available support to the targeted community. It is time to reshape our urban future. How our cities should be redesigned should consider the ecosystem, 10or 15-minute accessibility for the communities and sufficient public spaces, including good quality of roads with public transport as priorities. UCLG ASPAC, in cooperation with Daejeon Metropolitan City and Daejeon Metropolitan Express Transit Corp (DJET), released a publication on ‘Brief Countermeasures Report of Public Transport during COVID-19.’ This publication can be a useful reference for designing public transport

with digital transformation technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AIs) and Internet of Things (IoT). The newly redesigned cities allow equality, equity and security for all. Below is my vision - 5 Zeroes: ♦♦ First zero is zero inequalities. I envision a human-oriented AsiaPacific that considers the rights of all, including women, children and youth. ♦♦ Second zero is zero poverty. A society where everyone has a home and food on their tables is something that we all want to see. No one should be living in slums and on a hand-to-mouth existence. ♦♦ Third zero is zero crime, violence, disaster and accident. We want a safe environment, especially for women, children and less privileged people, free from conflict and disaster risk. We want peace and stability. ♦♦ Fourth zero is zero greenhouse gas emissions and zero pollution. Every human being, in fact, every living being, has the right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in a clean environment. ♦♦ Fifth and last zero is zero intolerance and zero discrimination. Even with different faiths and beliefs, we must show respect to earn respect. This vision is possible and feasible! Let’s go together towards a better future. As the famous proverb says, ‘If we want to go fast, we go alone, but if we want to go far, we go together’.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

ARTICLE | Transport Alternatives

Rethinking urban public mobility post COVID-19

The COVID-19 necessitated lockdown resulted in a severe curtailment in travel. Most daily office-goers worked from home, there was virtually no entertainment-related travel and many shopping-related trips were replaced by ordering online. As a result, streets that were otherwise choked were suddenly devoid of traffic for several months. As things open up, questions arise on whether the old movement patterns will be restored or are we likely to see a new normal

ost would like to see a new normal where cities are less polluted and less congested. Is this what we will get or are we heading for something worse than what we had before

the pandemic? A quick survey undertaken by the World Resources Institute (WRI) India on possible post-COVID mobility preferences showed that many young workers want to get a personal motor vehicle as they are worried about using public transport due to fear of the virus. This concern is manifested in the increased sale of 2-wheelers and small cars. Therefore, apprehensions that past efforts at persuading people to move to public transport from their vehicles will get reversed are not unfounded. There are also concerns on how public transport systems will make

up for the lockdown period losses when they lost revenue even as they incurred almost 60 per cent of their normal costs. Mere resumption of services will not help improve the situation very much for three reasons: ♦♦ Expenses will exceed normal levels due to the added precautions necessary to keep the systems safe for users ♦♦ The emerging culture of remote working will reduce passengers and revenue ♦♦ The need to ensure a safe physical distance between passengers will reduce the number of passengers that can be accommodated At a webinar during the Urban Mobility India conference on November 9, 2020, an esteemed panel, comprising experts from the World Bank, Transport for London, and govt agencies, were firm in their assessment that public transport will only face a

Just one kind of bus service is not enough. There is a need for superior quality services with higher fares and much better quality. Such premium services will not need public subsidies either

temporary setback and will bounce back very soon. There were views that the demand for transport may not come down very much as only a small segment of the daily commuters can afford the luxury of working from home. Most others will need to travel every day. This is a good time to set right the years of neglect in putting public transport finances on a more sustainable foundation. The State Transport Corporations together incurred a loss of nearly `16,500 crore in 2016-17. Metro rail systems in just 8 cities lost over `2,200 crore in 2018-19. Such deficits need to be plugged on a solid foundation of innovative funding. The traditional approach to bridging revenue – cost gaps has been a subsidy from the public budget. However, the pandemic has been a huge drain on the public budget for the relief and rehabilitation work and the availability of resources to meet public transport operational deficits will be severely constrained. Therefore, it is a good time to rethink how such gaps can be met for the present and in the years to come. It is an opportunity to fix public transport finances once and for all.

Solutions to revive public transport

Fortunately, several good options have been successfully tried in other parts of the world. However, they have yet to be tried out in India in a systematic manner. The one with

January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

OP Agarwal CEO, WRI India

the best potential seems to be the commercial exploitation of land owned by most public transport systems. So far they have been looked upon as essential assets for the operation of public transport. They have not been looked upon as potentially revenuegenerating assets. In a simple, back of the envelope calculation , and using data on property and rental values from Magicbricks.com, the author had estimated that the Delhi metro could raise over `4,90,000 crore from sale of the property and nearly `1,25,000 crores from rental income over 20 years. The rental income alone would more than meet the operating revenue gap for the Delhi metro as well as the entire public transport system in the city. The earnings from the sale of property would more than pay back the loans taken by the Delhi metro and serve as a capital resource for additional investments. Further, there is tremendous potential earnings by Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) from its depots and terminals located on prime land across the city. DTC owns over 35 depots across the city. These depots are primarily used for parking buses at night and some preventive maintenance work. During the day, these are virtually empty and could be better used as public parking facilities. Also, air rights can be used for the construction of residential and office complexes, which would provide substantial revenue. Systematic work at estimating the potential at each depot

and designing micro-level plans will be essential. This should neither be difficult nor expensive, compared to the kind of revenue potential that exists. The challenge is a mental willingness to take it up. Second, there is a need to think about the quality of public bus services. Currently, most cities have only a single type of bus service that traditionally offer affordable but low-quality services as they have been seen as the last resort of people who can afford nothing else. Therefore, they suffer from an image problem. Many commuters shun them for fear of damaging their reputation vis-a-vis their peers. This is the time to think of introducing premium services that have much better quality and can attract passengers away from the private modes of transport. Just one kind of bus service is not enough. There is a need for superior quality services with higher fares and much better quality. Such premium services will not need public subsidies either. Third, with months of working from home, several white-collar workers, especially in the IT industry, consultancy firms, think tanks, etc. have gotten used to working remotely and have begun to find it convenient. As a result, many may not revert to going to an office five days a week but may reduce the frequency of their daily commute. The chances are that their travel needs may now be limited to short trips in the vicinity, not exceeding 3 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 4 kms. However, there is no public

transport for such trips and people tend to use personal motor vehicles. Such trips should be nudged towards walking or cycling by investing in safe walkways and cycle tracks. The Government of Delhi has already decided to build over 500 kms of complete streets in the capital. This means the streets will be designed for use by all categories of users and not just car users. This is, indeed a very forward-looking initiative and other cities need to learn from this and replicate the effort. Fourth, the world is looking at electric vehicles very aggressively and most manufacturers are moving ahead with announcing their electric vehicle manufacturing plans. India has also announced its intent to promote electric vehicles but is yet to put out a coherent, comprehensive, and coordinated road map for going electric. This needs to be done quickly as it offers an opportunity for India to acquire a global leadership position. Thus, the pandemic offers an opportunity to look at greener postCOVID mobility. We need to establish innovative ways of financing public transport on a sustainable basis, create the infrastructure that makes walking and cycling safer, put in place, premium bus services that can wean away users of personal motor vehicles, and a coordinated approach to move towards electric vehicles will contribute to a new normal with blue skies and reduced pollution. This is an opportunity that should not be lost.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

ARTICLE | Climate-induced Migration

Cities need to accommodate people displaced by climate change The world is fast waking up to the problem of people displaced by climate change. People opting for aspirational migration are as such, moving into cities from villages. With more and more people being forcefully displaced for various reasons including development projects, conflicts and climate change, the additional population will be huge for the cities to manage

ost of the cities are already struggling to provide basic infrastructure and amenities to the incoming migrants who often settle in informal locations and in the most unhygienic conditions. The addition of this new lot would mean a huge expansion of informal cities and thus a great responsibility of the city governments and authorities to plan development not only to meet the basic needs of these migrants but also to see that they get dignified shelter, better livelihoods and ensured rights in urban

governance. Further, cities also need to ensure that the informal city dwellersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; unplanned settlement should not exert more pressure on the already shrinking water commons and other natural resources. For that to happen, cities need to stay alert to the increasing problems created by climate change and related disasters.

Climate-induced disasters on the rise

In the last decade, extreme weather and climate-related events, such as floods, storms and heatwaves, have caused 83 per cent of the disasters. During this decade, almost 1.7 billion

In about three decades, it is expected that humanity would have turned into an exclusively urban species. By then, almost 80 to 90 per cent of people would be living in urban areas

January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

people worldwide have been affected by climate and weather-related disasters. Further, during this time, these extreme weather and climaterelated disasters have killed more than 4,10,000 people. Most of these people are from low and lower-middle-income countries. Heatwaves and storms have been the biggest killers. According to the World Disasters Report 2020, the number of climate and weatherrelated disasters has been increasing since the 1960s and have risen almost 35 per cent since the 1990s. The proportion of all disasters attributable to climate and extreme weather events has also increased significantly during this time, from 76 per cent of all disasters during the 2000s, to 83 per cent in the 2010s. The increased number of disasters has impacted migration patterns. The number of internally displaced people (IDP) caused by climate change has been growing exponentially. As per the latest report from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), the number of internally displaced people has increased by almost 7.7 million in just one year. 24.9 million people were internally displaced in 2019 due to natural disasters and extreme weather events. The number of such people in 2018 stood at 17.2 million. Nearly 1,900 disasters triggered these 24.9 million new displacements across 140 countries and territories in 2019, said the IDMC 2020 report. This is the highest figure

Ranjan K Panda Convenor, Combat Climate Change Network

recorded since 2012 and three times the number of displacements caused by conflict and violence. Bangladesh, China, India and the Philippines, each recorded more than 4 million disasterinduced displacements. In fact, for India, the number stood at more than half a million. In the first half of 2020 alone, nearly 10 million people are reported to have been displaced by natural disasters and causes associated with climate change. This has become a huge humanitarian crisis for the world and cities have to bear the brunt of it.

Cities - The new hot spots

A World Bank report of 2018 revealed that “internal climate migrants” or the internally displaced persons could be more than 143 million by 2050, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and South Asia. Most of these will be forced from their homes by extreme weather events. Others will move from rural areas to cities due to slowonset climate-related events, such as desertification. Studies have already indicated that most of these forced migrations will be in the form of ruralurban migration within countries. Most of these migrants from rural areas will converge to Urban Hot Spots - as defined by some researchers - for food, jobs and shelter. Most of these hot spots will occur in rapidly expanding cities in low and middle-income countries. In the informal settlements, these hot spots have also been termed as fragile cities by researchers

because of the lack of proper services, infrastructure, and governance. Crime, inequality and even threat related to climate change adds to the fragility of these spots. In about three decades, it is expected that humanity would have turned into an exclusively urban species. By then, almost 80 to 90 per cent of people would be living in urban areas. Currently, cities in the Global South are growing much faster than they did in industrialized countries 100 or more years ago. Farmlands are getting saturated, and cities are being marketed as the new growth engine for nations. That’s the norm. However, the new norm is the exponential rise of IDP. Thus, cities are facing multiple challenges in keeping pace with the influx – the largest and toughest wave of urban growth in history – to provide all that is needed for making them habitable, equitable and sustainable.

Planned intervention needed

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly said that the changes brought in by the climate crisis will influence migration patterns. It said, “However, our level of awareness and understanding of how environmental factors affect migration, and how they also interact with other migration drivers such as demographic, political and economic conditions, has also changed. With enhanced knowledge, there is more incentive to act urgently, be prepared and respond.”

It is a positive signal that governments worldwide are growingly recognising that there are people displaced by climate change. Political awareness around environmental migration, as the UN says, has increased over the last decade and there is increased acceptance that this is a global challenge. Nation-states have signed the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and most importantly, the Global Compact for Migration. Our cities now need to integrate the challenge of IDP in their plans and programmes. While the country needs to craft a special policy on IDP and climate refugees, cities need to step up their planned interventions in this regard. The Global Compact for Migration suggests that the primary solution should be to allow people to stay in their homelands. It’s only in extreme cases that new settlements be offered. However, looking at the situation, as the number of such migrants keeps growing and as most of them are expected to end up in cities, building IDP sensitive cities has become a new and urgent need. While accommodating the IDP, the cities have to plan their programmes so that the water commons and other common spaces are not stressed further. Provisioning of services equitably and inclusively is important and makes a city ‘smart’. Conserving the commons is smarter and makes the city’s path of growth sustainable.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

ARTICLE | Urban Policies

Imperatives of constituting 2 National Commission on Urbanisation nd

WILL the year 2021 be a secure future for all of us living in the cities? This question haunts many of us who have been working in the cities since long. The year 2020 has been a thorough expose of the way how we are developing and imagining our cities

he COVID pandemic which destroyed our economic structures and turned the situation into a holocaust was an exposure of the hollowness of our building framework of our cities. The unsustainability of the cities came to the fore in a very vivid manner. Such a system is completely fragile, and we need to reimagine how we are building our urban centres. The lockdown announced in a span of four hours, and the reverse migration of the urban workers mostly in the unorganised sector to their villages will go down in the annals of history. But why is it that the cities that boasted of creating many indices for ranking on livelihood, sanitation, resilience and what not, could not just hold their poor, informal sector workers and other marginalised sections for even a few days? There are no easy answers to this question. However, one thing is quite immanent to it; the processes and ways in which the cities are being developed are delinked from the people’s demands. There is a transformation in the cities that began long ago. This transformation, where cities are considered ‘engines of growth’, ‘entrepreneurs’, were actually linked to the need and vagaries of global finance capital. This process began in the early 70s in the world and in the 90s in India and Indian cities. Policy paradigm was suggested to ensure that cities become competitive and become investmentfriendly.

20 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

Now, what does this mean in simpler terms? It means that the cities will have to ease out their laws to sustain their infrastructure needs; since most of the laws concerning land, which is so pivotal for development, were either with the state or central government, central and state legislations were brought in. But a naive question could be asked why should cities become competitive, and why should not the state and central government invest in the cities? According to the JnNURM, the reforms that were effected during the UPA 1 regime, which had the support of the Left in the government, $630 billion are required to meet urban India’s infrastructure needs in two decades. Guess what the total money injected during that the ten year period of UPA 1 & 2 is? It is a mere 2.2 per cent of this demand. Mere $14 billion was planned to be injected in the cities through JnNURM process, most of these were project-oriented grants. The large capital, which was believed to ameliorate our cities’ problems, did not serve the purpose. Instead, a nexus was generated at the centre, state level, forcing the cities to accept the provisions of the reforms and allow a paradigm shift in urban governance. I remember Venkaiah Naidu, former urban development minister, saying in a conference on cities; “the cities do not have money, they come to the states, the states also do not have money they come to the centre, the centre also does not have the required money, they look at the multilateral

agencies.” These agencies then through their interventions not just in projects, but also on policies, roll out the development model, which is then eulogised by states and the cities. The states and cities are forced to implement these reforms because if they do not, then a large number of grants are stopped, which are linked to these reforms.

Impact of new missions

Smart cities, AMRUT, Swachh Bharat Mission and many others were linked to the old model. It was for privatisation of cities without realising that this model was already failing. The new model of governance in the cities through the smart cities concept brought in an adjunct of special purpose vehicle which usurped the elected council’s powers as the significantnumber of developmental projects were designed and decided by SPVs. Samuel Stien, in one of his pioneering works, The Capital City, writes that in a few American cities, the city development process has become the primary mode of capital accumulation. We are not sure if that is also true for Indian cities. Still, a cursory look suggests how the privatisation of utilities and services affects the people’s livelihoods. This has led to a situation where the asset holding capacity of the marginalised and poor has dwarfed phenomenally. In the Oxfam report, the top 10 per cent and bottom 10 per cent in rural India has a gap of nearly 500 times, whereas in urban India the

Tikender Singh Panwar Former Deputy Mayor, Shimla

gap is mind-boggling 50,000 times. The poor do not have any asset to hold onto in the cities. How can they sustain, or how can such cities sustain without them?

What needs to be done?

I remember participating in a webinar discussion just recently where Kirtee Bhai, the lone living member of the first Urban Commission formed in 1986 of which Charles Correa was the chairperson was emphatically quoting from the 2nd Habitat. The executive director of the 2nd UN-Habitat time and again mentioned the necessity of a revolution in the urban to ensure that the urban centres sustain. Of course, ‘revolution’ in the UN terminology has its own connotations. But at least a word missing from the vocabulary of many of the liberal urban theorists started to resonate. Then we had the Habitat 3 in Quito in which I was also a delegate and the executive director of Habitat III kept on reminding that the present model of urbanisation is unsustainable and that we have to go back to the basics. John Closs, the ED of Habitat III vociferously raised his voice that “things, as usual, will not work”, he remarked that “the previous decades of laissez-faire, i.e., the freemarket economy has proven disastrous and that we have to go back to the basics of planning.” Now if both these are compiled together what does this lead to? It has very specific connotations, and the crux is that things must change and change in the people’s interest.

Form 2nd National Commission on Urbanisation

The first Urban Commission had interesting guidelines for the then government. The driving force or if one could say the preamble of this commission was driven by a fact that the cities were looked upon as manufacturing centres. A major part of the objectives of this commission was to address this challenge in the cities. This commission’s principal role was to examine the state of urbanisation-demographic, economic, infrastructural, environmental, physical, energy, land, poverty, aesthetics, and cultural aspects. Its role was to prepare basic guidelines for a specific action plan in priority areas; evolve policy frames and suggest approaches to building interactions among government, academic, research and citizen groups. Not just to limit to suggestions but also suggest an institutional framework for monitoring the effective implementation of the commission’s recommendations. The commission had made some recommendations which are worth sharing. It had recommended for promoting 329 growth centres and emphasised upon strengthening of the existing larger metropolis. In the given circumstances, what is required is to have a 2nd National Commission on Urbanisation to understand our cities’ complexities. When the first commission was formed, migration was not a big issue; likewise, the formal employment sector was more than what it is today. The

sheer numbers in the cities have grown phenomenally high. In the 80s, nearly 23 per cent of the population stayed in urban centres. Today it is more than 34 per cent (2001-31.8 per cent). Since the 80s nearly 218 million more people were added to the country’s urban centres (India’s urban population: 1981 -159 million, 2011-377 million). By the 2021 census, the numbers would further swell. The piecemeal approach to urban problems that includes employment, city development, governance, utilities, the vitality of the town etc., cannot serve the purpose. A 2nd National Commission should be entrusted with a task to formulate a holistic picture of the urban spaces and the challenges. Small doses of “ease of doing business”, “smart cities”, AMRUT, etc., cannot bring in either quantitative or qualitative changes. But the point is who is going to do it? Different sections of the people will have to come and reclaim their spaces in the urban in the given situation. Meanwhile, some states can formulate their state-level commissions to analyse urban challenges and develop action plans accordingly. The year 2021 is a year of optimism as 2020 has not just been excruciatingly painful for many of us who have lost their close ones but also continue to suffer because of the pandemic both pathologically and economically. This optimism for 2021 for a year of fulfilling cherished dreams will not and cannot fall like a fairy tale but will have to be achieved through our collective efforts for a better and secure future. And urban is part of that!

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

CRIC

Leading ASEAN cities towards resilient, sustainable pathways

SEAN region has undergone transformational changes in economic sectors, socio-economic status with surge in industrial outputs and economic growth driven by market forces and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). At the same time, continual upward curve of domestic consumption, waste output, destruction of biodiversity with natural assets, increased number of plastic hotspots,and rapid urbanizationwith uncertain pattern in environmental and climatic characteristics has thrown the countries into future resilience risks. Presently, human societies around the globe including countries in the ASEAN region is suffering from loss of natural capital and erosion in natural assets and problem is further getting worsening by negative impacts on public health with direct impact from toxic air, food, water leading to casualties. Also, increased application of pesticides and

fertilizers, antibiotics and zoonotic disease andthrown masses into burden of disease with erosion in GDP. ASEAN is the sixth-largest economy in the worldwith Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$2.4 trillion, today with rapid increasing trend in population with expanding circle of urban area. The current urban population in ASEAN accounts for about 47 per cent of the total population and it is expected to reach 63 per cent by 2050.

Regional climate change, disaster risks and natural capital risks

The regional atmosphere of ASEANs influenced by El Niño and La Niña weather phenomenon which impact the seasonal monsoon cycle with country wide changes in the weather pattern. Countries being on the ring of fire and on the convergent boundaries of the earth’s tectonic plate and typhoon belt, the countries are frequently exposed to natural hazards, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic activities and typhoons. Tropic

Regional and transboundary environmental pollution phenomenon of smoke haze and air pollution posing emerging challenges to the countries and demanding regional actions and programme to eliminate the problem

22 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

storms, episodes of typhoons and earthquakes annually pose serious risks and damages to economic activities and life of people. Regional and transboundary environmental pollution phenomenon of smoke haze and air pollution that is heavily is posing emerging challenges to the countries and demanding regional actions and programme to eliminate the problem. Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and other Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS) countries are historically facing meteoro-climatic disaster with significant surge in the climate disaster phenomenon. The enormity of climate disasters have reversed the economic growth of tune of over US$ 45 billion in economic loss and damage as a result of the prolonged, nation-wide, ﬂood in 2011. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) caused US$ 10 billion in loss and damages.

Sectoral challenges and major environmental issues in ASEAN countries

Analysis of the state of atmosphere in the ASEAN region reveals that energy sectors demonstrated slow transition in energy-mix of the countries and increasing air pollution levels because of largecarbon dioxide emissions and it is predicted that energy-related CO2 emission levels may rise by 61 % upto 2025 from the 2014l levels. Continued notification by Governments in the region about new additions of metropolitan regions within the converging municipal councils and regions is creating new sources of GHG hotspots in ASEAN cities need to urgently seek low-carbon economies, infrastructure and transport. As highlighted in an UNEP report titled as UNEP (2018), Air Pollution

Kamlesh Pathak Senior Expert, Sustainable Development

in Asia and the Pacific: Science-based Solutions, it was found, around 4 billion people with 92% of the asia pacific being on exposure to pollution levels in excess of WHO impact of air pollution on human health constitutes a serious public health crisis across and has been attributed to as one of major cause of premature death and multiple form of illness. Moreover, surge of (PM 10), (PM2.5) and ground-level ozone in Asia and the Pacific to reduce emissions that lead to serious problem of air pollution as a new kind of social disaster and also compromising food security of and secure food future of asian people. Not only this, degradation of forest, unplanned land-use management and to peat fires related to expansion of large scale commercial plantations has made trans-boundary regional haze pollution as long-standing perennial challenge for countries in the region. Up to 90% of trans-boundary smoke haze in ASEAN is linked. Demand for minerals and materials to fuel the economic growth of the region has resulted in the accelerated, mindless extraction of natural resource exploitation with loss of protected area on land, sea with right to breathe clean and life giving air. Dwindling freshwater resources and with looming water-insecurity, unplanned urban planning, degradation of catchment, episodes of climate shocks and events of extreme flood, draught is putting more and more risks on cities and municipalities. Exploitation of

protects area, nature based ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves are facing never before survival challenges. With the growing domestic consumption, increase in per capita income, a vicious cycle of unsustainable consumption and production and lack of awareness on responsible material and chemical consumption. Use of banned chemicals and injection of pesticides and antibiotics into agrifood cycle has will delay the regions progress on SDG Goals before 2030. Above all, one of major environmental challenges of region, plastics, including single use plastic, has caused an estimated 1%–5% decline in benefits or services from oceans— equating to $0.5 trillion to $2.5 trillion per year—particularly those relating to fisheries, aquaculture, recreation, natural heritage, and human well-being (Marine Pollution Bulletin. Volume 142. pp. 189–195), which will be seriously impacting the blue growth and blue economy prospect of the region. About 150 million tons of plastic is already in the ocean, and this amount increases every year by about 8 million to 12 million tons. The 8 major rivers in Asia out of 10 responsible for the load of in the and transport 88%– 95% of plastics into the sea are in Asia: the Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus, and Ganges rivers are from Asia and spread across the costal one of Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Philippines, PRC , Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

What is needed in the region

When a major region of the world confronting with such an enormity and diversity of challenges of sustainability, achieving the goals of Paris climate agreement and SDG 2030 will remain a far reality! In this discouraging narrative, the role of Local Authorities (LAs), Network of Cities and Local Governments and International and development cooperation from the political and economic union, European Union (EU) could reverse the damage and accelerate commitment towards global goals the region to UN. (LAs) are and will be at the forefront when responding to the challenges on the ground and providing environmental and economic opportunities to citizens of the region. What was more desirable to explore new and enhanced cooperation mechanism among developing countries and economies in transitions, and also among European Union and Global South countries? The role of South-South and triangular cooperation will be vital and crucial in designing, implementing and financial leveraging based on policies, measures and common challenges. Grants, Investment, Policies around common global strategies, pushed by European Union and partners, with also ownership and responsibility towards will further strengthen the action and commitment of south countries in ASEAN.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

ARTICLE | Inclusive City Planning

Democratising planning in Indian cities By the People, for the People, of the People Delhi is on the verge of receiving its next master plan, a blueprint that has a bearing on how it evolves over the next twenty years and addresses the myriad challenges it faces. When the draft master plan is released for suggestions, the residents will only have a few days to read, comprehend and respond to the complex and imposing document. Several contradictions exist to the well-imagined preparation of the planning process

recent study by Main Bhi Dilli campaign and IndoGlobal Social Service Society (IGSSS)titled ‘Assessment of People’s Awareness on Delhi’s Master Plan 2021-41’ revealed that 80 per cent of the residents have not heard about Delhi master plan, and 0 per cent know how to use or access land use map. They have no awareness of how to give suggestions or raise objections on the master plan, nor the knowledge of which agency prepares the plan. None of the respondents have read the last master plan report, and the majority think it is Delhi Government and not Delhi Development Authority (DDA) which makes the master plan.

The case is not particular to Delhi; this is typical to any city in India. Public engagement in the planning process is viewed as a hurdle with minimal tokenistic consultations. The mandatory suggestion and objection phase does not create adequate spaces for people to critique, offer feedback, or share their collective needs and aspirations. Consequently, it becomes rather late to include and alter anything in the penultimate stage. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that over the last hundred years of urban planning(or the lack of it), only expert-led city planning has worsened social inequalities and made cities increasingly unliveable and exclusionary, turning their backs on its people and the workers that make the cities.

Public engagement in the planning process is viewed as a hurdle with minimal tokenistic consultations. The mandatory suggestion and objection phase does not create adequate spaces for people to critique, offer feedback, or share their collective needs and aspirations. Consequently, it becomes rather late to include and alter anything in the penultimate stage

24 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

Perceptions & failures of the conventional Master Plans

There are several challenges that the conventional top-down master planning framework poses. First, it has the inherent weakness of being a ‘master’ plan. The misnomer signifies that planning remains far from ‘Janta Janardhan’. Expert-driven mechanisms that leave out the nuances and lived realities of the people and prefer straight lines and maps that look more planned. Second, the master planning process is viewed often from the lens of implementation’, with the naive assumption that all plans designed by experts are for wider social benefit. The multiple planning agencies, the diverse land use - ownership patterns and above all the lack of data makes implementation a near impossibility. Third, planning is assumed to be a nonpartisan and objective process, where objective and rational decisions are taken. However, this also is a deeply contested socio-political process that makes it imperative to engage with. Fourth, what distinguishes Indian cities and cities in the Global South is the ever-pervading informality. Let it be living or working conditions, the informal constitutes the dominant majority, and state-led planning has only tried to remove the informal practices-often labelled as zoning violations or encroachments. This leads to further marginalization of the urban poor and worker groups. Fifth, the development plans remain undermined

Aravind Unni Urban Poverty Thematic Lead, IGSSS

Shalaka Chauhan Coordinator, Main Bhi Dilli

and irrelevant. Rather than cynically viewing urban planning as an apparatus in the arms of the State and viewing Indian cities as unplannable, we wish to place the focus on the importance of planning by people.

Urban planning and people’s ‘inputs’

The DDA act of 1957, cites Development as – “with its grammatical variations, means the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land or the making of any material change in any building or land and includes redevelopment;” – devoid of meaning of social purpose that betters residents lives and living conditions. The DDA Act 1957 does further mandate the invitation for people’s suggestions and objections, but only when the draft is ready, with little scope of participation post that late stage. The Urban and Regional Development Plans Formulation and Implementation (URDPFI) guidelines, though marginally inclusive says at every level of this process, public participation, and representation in the form of Focus Group discussions and consultation is necessary but does not set a mandate for peoples’ contribution. Well-meaning officials and consultants like National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) with support of DDA appointed as in the case of Delhi, though having taken a few

steps to involve public participation in the process; these are only a few rare exceptions. They have released an online google form asking for people’s five ideas of how they ‘’envision’’ their city for the next twenty years, but, these steps, though well-intentioned seem inconsequential in the challenge of urban planning as we see in Delhi. As concurred by the assessment report, none of the Delhiites surveyed knew of the master plan process, none had visited the DDA website – leave alone filling up the google form in English, a language that only a minute section of the city and its elites speak.

Way forward

Public engagement in the process of making the plan is critical in ensuring that plans are taken seriously and implemented with people’s participation. The global south examples, though from diverse sociocultural milieu offer many interesting lessons for us to learn and borrow from. The creation of urban policies in Brazil and other Latin American countries in the last thirty years is one of the best examples of the efforts of citizens to make city planning democratic and transparent addressing the social inequalities. The City Statute of Brazil brings to fore the importance of ‘social function’ of planning and need for ‘a path to plan, produce, operate and govern cities subject to social control and participation’. In another context, in our south-east Asian neighbour Singapore, public engagement is becoming a norm in the planning and redevelopment process. In 2001 for the Concept Plan — the first time the public had been involved at the concept planning stage. To make people co-creators in this process, in the immediate for Delhi, DDA needs to lead the way to conduct awareness workshops on MPD41 at zonal and councillor ward level as a governance unit and help prepare people for the ‘feedback and suggestion’ phase. These units must also then be transferred forward as Local Area Plans that are not twenty-

year plans but smaller locality plans that are implemented by active community and people’s collectives for smaller durations of five years. Whilst ensuring democratic participation in the implementation, social inclusion considerations for marginal populations must not be left for later - all the groups such as informal sector workers, homeless, people with disabilities, women, trans people, children, youth, and elderly must be identified first and their spatial needs recognised. Master plan documents need to be more accessible, and available. These should be exhibited in locally available walk-in zonal centres where citizens and youth engage with the process of city-making. The documents and maps produced must be available in local languages. The process need not be overly dependent on Information, and Communication Technology or else public participation will be limited to Twitter shares, and Facebook likes. At the policy level, nationally, we need a shift in policy perspective about the relationship between citizens and city planning policy, from one where citizens are the recipients (objects) of public policy to one where citizens are the focal point (subject) of the policy, with spaces of institutionalized engagement both in the preparation and in the implementation of plans at the city level. As the largest democracy, Indian cities need to set an example and convey that however messy and complicated, that Democratic Planning: By the People, for the People, of the People - is the mantra for us to follow. Aravind Unni, is working as Urban Poverty Thematic Lead with Indo-Global Social Service Society and handling developmental interventions with the most marginalized sections of the urban poor in more than 20 cities spread across 12 states for IGSSS. Shalaka is working as a coordinator of Main Bhi Dilli campaign, a people’s campaign that calls for inclusion in Delhi’s Masterplan and has been associated with Delhi Roundtable on Solid waste management.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

E-Dialogues | 3R & Circular Economy

APPROACH TO BUILDING RESILIENT CITIES

R and Circular Economy are the best approaches to handling the increased quantity of domestic waste that flooded waste management authorities during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This included, but was not limited to, face masks, gloves, PPE kits etc. In addition to this, the Work from Home culture also meant that the quantity of E-waste also increased manifold. There are, however, many short-term, economically attractive opportunities for resource efficiency, clean energy, and waste reduction. In the longterm, an economic strategy focussed on recycling, circular economy, and clean energy are superior to business as usual. To move forward, it is essential to tackle inequalities in socio-economic systems, strengthen capacities of local actors such as local governments, bridge the digital divide, and pursue a resilient, inclusive, gender-equal, and green economic recovery. To meet the current and future challenges posed by pandemics such as COVID-19, cities must ensure access to water and sanitation for all, plan for the resilience of systems and infrastructures, and use sustainability metrics in choosing and implementing solutions to the pandemic. All India Institute of Local SelfGovernment (AIILSG) and Urban Update, in association with United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG ASPAC), organised the twenty-first edition of the webinar series titled ‘E-Dialogues’ on “3R and Circular Economy for Building Resilient Cities in the Post-COVID Era” on Saturday, January 9, 2021.

26 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

To address the concerns, Urban update invited a distinguished panel of experts including Rohit Kakkar, Deputy Advisor (PHE), Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs, Government of India; Dr Malini Reddy, Professor (Urban Governance), Administrative Staff College of India; Praveena Sanjay, Director of World Institute of Sustainable Energy, Pune; and Kartik Kapoor, Project Member, Circular and Low Carbon cities, International Solid Waste Association (ISWA). The event was moderated by Dr Kulwant Singh, Chief Executive Officer, 3R Waste Foundation. Dr Singh commenced the webinar by introducing the panelists and invited Rohit Kakkar to speak first. He briefly explained what 3R and the scenario of waste management in India is. Stating that urban India accounts for a third of India’s population and generates 54.7 million tonnes of municipal solid waste, he added that the waste generation in India is increasing by 5 per cent every year because of increasing population and consumption. It is estimated that half of the population will be living in cities by 2050, therefore there would be an increase in the quantum of waste produced. Kakkar then presented a pie chart of solid waste composition in urban India and a flow chart of processing of municipal solid waste. He also talked about the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Explaining some of the policies interventions for processing of solid waste, Kakkar said that since the policies were launched in 2014, when the waste processing was only 18 per cent, now when we have provided potential resources to the state, the waste processing has reached up to 67 per cent. He pointed out that there are

86,134 waste segregation wards in our country, out of which 66,140 are wards with 100 per cent source segregation. Talking about wastewater management, Kakkar said that the focus should be on improving the sewerage coverage in the country so that wastewater can be brought back in the system and reused. He went on to discuss the progress made under the ‘Clean India Mission’. Kakkar also informed how water can be reused and how the urban water bodies can be recharged.Kakkar concluded by saying that circular sanitation economy is not just a project but an overall practice, depending on the requirement of the town. Dr Singh then added to the information provided by Kakkar and invited Praveena Sanjay to speak next. She talked about how ULBs can work on enabling circular economy for waste management in the postCOVID era. She said, “In 2016, around 2 billion metric tonnes of solid waste was generated by cities across the globe. Unhindered population growth

For video of the webinar, scan the QR Code

and urbanisation is expected to result in further increase in annual waste generation by 70 per cent from 2016 levels to 3.40 billion metric tonnes in 2050. According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), India generates around 55-65 million tonnes of municipal solid waste every year. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change estimates that only 75–80 per cent of the total municipal waste gets collected and only 22–28 per cent of this is processed and treated. This means that around 50 per cent of waste remains untreated. Praveena said that India’s ambitious goal of eliminating single-use plastic by 2022 seems distant, given the current situation of COVID-19 pandemic. The key focus of her presentation was the important challenges in waste management post-COVID. She informed that CPCB had proposed revised guidelines in July 2020 for handling, treating and disposing of waste generated during treatment/ diagnosis/quarantine of COVID-19 patients. However, there is no monitoring system in place to check its adherence and compliance. There is also lack of awareness amongst citizens regarding CPCB guidelines for solid waste disposal for households and persons other than COVID-19 patients. This has resulted in mixing of solid

waste and infectious biomedical waste from quarantined homes which ends up in the regular solid waste disposal site for treatment, thus leading to increased fear of contamination and spread of the disease. Due to COVID-19, there has been a surge in production and consumption of household and personal health related products, mainly singleuse gloves, masks, equipment like thermometers, electronic gadgets like laptops and mobiles, sanitisation and cleaning products like detergents, hand sanitizers, cleaning wipes, and disposable tissues. The production and consumption of these products is only intensifying due to the impulse of the people to stay safe and protected from the virus. By 2050, half of India’s population is expected to live in cities, and municipal solid waste volumes are expected to triple to about 436 million metric tonnes. In this scenario, a move towards a circular economy mandating the 3Rs is the need of the hour. She emphasised on the fact that cities are key providers of essential services and drivers of waste management, there is an urgent need to strengthen local governments and make them more resilient through the development of a bottom-up and circular approach. The next speaker, Dr Reddy, emphasised on the need for water to maintain sanitation because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She

E-Dialogues 21.0 | 3R and Circular Economy for Building Resilient Cities in the Post-Covid Era

talked about how rapid and lowcost water service and sanitation provision for communities, health care facilities, and schools is critical to enable handwashing, hygiene, and disinfection. Sanitation workers should have proper training and access to personal protective equipment (PPE), and in many scenarios, a specific combination of PPE elements is recommended. Dr Reddy then raised her concern on the issue of open discharge of faecal matter. She said that one gram of faeces may contain 100 parasites eggs, 1,000 Protozoa, and 10,00,000 bacteria and virus. She went on to explain co-treatment of septage with sewerage in existing sewage treatment plants (STPs) in Andhra Pradesh. She added that after testing this model of STP in various cities in the state, and after the assurance that the model is successful, the policy decision was taken to convert all 33 STPs into cotreatment plants. Kapoor, the last speaker of the webinar, extensively discussed topics such as consumption and cities, circular economy as a concept, recycling, circularity cascades in the city, circular and low-carbon cities, and measuring cities’ circularity. Initially, he explained the meaning and significance of circular economy. Through his presentation, he demonstrated the differences between linear economy, recycling economy and circular economy. He also discussed about various countries that focus on practices that lead to circular economy, such as Circular Economy (CE) indicators of London, and the National CE Indicators System in China. Kapoor then explained the study in Nairobi, Kenya, which shows that there is an urgent need for implanting circular economy as a global concept. Concluding the webinar, Dr Singh briefly talked about the need for adopting circular economy in India as our natural resources are depleting day by day and adopting both 3R and circular economy as a practice is the only solution.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

Numerograph | COVID - 19 Vaccine

India Begins World’s Largest Vaccination Drive Government of India has begun the largest vaccination drive in the world in its fight against COVID-19. The jabs of two Indian vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — are being administered to the public as per priorities defined by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Team Urban Update tries to address the various confusions regarding the coronavirus vaccines Compiled by Hitesh Nigam | Editorial Assistant, and Team

FAQs Will COVID-19 vaccines provide long-term protection? It is too early to know if COVID-19 vaccines will provide long-term protection. Additional research is needed to answer this question. However, it’s encouraging that available data suggests that most people who recover from COVID-19 develop an immune response that provides at least some period of protection against re-infection. Chandigarh

Out of the multiple vaccines available, how is one or more vaccine chosen for administration? All the COVID-19 vaccines that receive license will have comparable safety and efficacy. However, it must be ensured that the entire vaccination schedule is completed by only one type of vaccine as different COVID-19 vaccines are not interchangeable

Will COVID-19 vaccine be given to everyone simultaneously? Government of India has selected the priority groups who will be vaccinated, as they are at a higher risk of contracting COVID-19. The first group includes healthcare and frontline workers. The second group to receive COVID-19 vaccine will be persons over 50 years of age and persons under 50 years with comorbidities.

8,830

Goa

18,277

Health-care workers getting vaccinated in Phase-1 Nagaland

19,654

Meghalaya

25,000

Tripura

45,420

Himachal Pradesh

80,000

Uttrakhand

94,000

Assam

150000

Jammu and Kashmir

160000

Punjab

160000

Andhra Pradesh

170000

Haryana

190000

Jharkhand

250000

Chhattisgarh

254000

Delhi

300,000

Odisha

328000

Gujarat

396000

Bihar

439000

Rajasthan

450000

Madhya Pradesh

450000

Tamil Nadu

600000

Karnataka

630524

Maharashtra

758000 0

100000

28 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

700000

800000

Who should not be administered the vaccine? ♦♦ People with a history of anaphylactic or allergic reactions ♦♦ Persons with a history of immediate or delayed-onset anaphylaxis or allergic reaction to vaccine or injectable therapies, pharmaceutical products, food items ♦♦ Pregnant women or who are not sure of their pregnancy and lactating mothers ♦♦ COVID-19 patients who have been given anti-SARS-CoV-2 monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma ♦♦ Those who are unwell and patients hospitalised due to any illness ♦♦ The COVID-19 vaccines should be administered with caution in persons with a history of any bleeding or coagulation disorder (clotting factor deficiency, cogulapathy or platelet disorder) Is it mandatory to take the vaccine? Vaccination for COVID-19 is voluntary. However, it is advisable to receive the complete schedule of COVID-19 vaccine for protecting oneself against this disease. Will the vaccine be safe? Vaccines are introduced in the country only after the regulatory bodies clear it based on its safety and efficacy.

How many doses of the vaccine would have to be taken, and at what interval? Two doses of vaccine, 28 days apart, need to be taken by an individual.

Can a person with COVID-19 (confirmed or suspected) be vaccinated? Infected individuals should defer vaccination for 14 days after resolution of symptoms. Will a Photo / ID be required at the time of registration? The Photo ID produced at the time of registration must be produced and verified at vaccination time.

Are Indian vaccines as effective as those in other countries? Yes, vaccines made in India are equally effective.

Country income-level by number of doses purchased 4,500,000,000 4,198,500,000 4,000,000,000

3,500,000,000

3,000,000,000

2,500,000,000

2,000,000,000

1,500,000,000 1,070,000,000

1,124,300,075 1,000,000,000

500,000,000 411,200,000

270,000,000

0 High Income Countries

Upper Middle Income Countries

Lower Middle Income Countries

COVAX, Global Entity

Low Income

Source: World Health Organisation, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, State Health Departements, World Resources Institute, Launch and Scale Speedometer, Duke University

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

NEWSCAN

Telangana, West Bengal, Gujarat producing highest amount of unclean coal power NEW DELHI: An analysis by the Centre for Science and Environment has found Telangana, West Bengal, and Gujarat to be the top three states producing and procuring unclean coal-based power which is severely affecting the environment. The CSE study assessed and ranked the states and Union territories (UTs) based on how much electricity they get from unclean coal-fired power plants. It found West Bengal, Telangana, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Tamil Nadu to be the major defaulters as per the study. The report states that these states have been procuring around 60 per cent of their thermal power from unclean coal-fired stations on an average. Of the nine states buying maximum unclean power, only Gujarat and West Bengal have the full authority to monitor the stations for they are located within their state boundaries. The rest of the states have dual accountability of cleaning up both

30 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

their own stations as well as ensuring that stations supplying to them from other states are clean. According to Soundaram Ramanathan, Deputy Programme Manager, Industrial Pollution Unit, CSE, coal-fired power plants, which have not made any progress to comply with the emission norms so far have been termed ‘unclean’, and those who have awarded work to meet the standards have been considered under the ‘cleaner’ coal-fired stations. The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change had notified emission norms for particulate matter, sulphur dioxide and oxides of nitrogen in 2015. These had to be complied with by power stations from 2017. Nivit Kumar Yadav, Programme Director, Industrial Pollution, CSE, mentioned that the coal-fired power stations emit three major pollutants, including particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, and sulphur dioxide. He added that power stations have been specially lagging behind in their

compliance with the sulphur dioxide norms. Hence, the researchers from CSE in this study have considered the progress made by stations to meet the sulphur dioxide norm as a measuring scale to identify the ‘dirtiest’ power. Current installed power capacity in India is 374 gigawatts (GW). Coal and ignite contribute 55 per cent, and account for around 205.8 GW of the total power capacity installed. Renewable sources such as solar, wind, and biomass account for 90 GW of the total. Data available on the website of the Ministry of Power states that of around 162 GW of coal power capacity, 58 per cent on an average comes from ‘unclean’ coal-based power plants. According to the study, 84 per cent of the thermal power comes from “unclean” coal-based power plants in West Bengal, which are far away from meeting the norms made on emissions of sulphur dioxide. This figure stands at 71 per cent in Gujarat and at 74 per cent in Telangana. The study also found that unclean power stations were one of the key sources of ambient air pollution in non-attainment cities in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. Unclean power stations in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, and Uttar Pradesh are located in clusters, and the study mentions that they are not making sufficient efforts to comply with the norms. The assessment established that Delhi and Goa are presently very close in terms of procuring clean power — only 5-8 per cent of their electricity comes from unclean sources. The researchers found only 13 states across the nation to be sourcing 100 per cent of their requirements from clean coal-based power stations. These states are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Daman & Diu, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir.

NEWSCAN

Resilient Recovery

Cities link pandemic, climate adaptation responses ‘1,000 Cities Adapt Now’ global program will focus on tackling water issues - from storm water to drought – using natural systems to protect urban areas from climate change impacts WASHINGTON: Urban residents in cites all over the world are facing devastating health and economic impacts due to COVID-19 pandemic. Cities all over the globe have committed to use their post-pandemic recovery plans to strengthen ways to adapt to the growing risks posed by climate change. The ‘1,000 Cities Adapt Now’ initiative, launched by Global Center on Adaptation; World Resources Institute; Resilient Cities Network and United Nations Habitat, will initially start operating in 100 urban areas but eventually expand to 1,000, organisers said at the opening of the two-day virtual Climate Adaptation Summit. As per a joint statement on the initiative, the project was developed amid the concern that adaptation had received relatively lesser priority in the international climate discussion, and it will now use the issue to drive a complete and resilient postpandemic recovery. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester, addressing a summit mayor’s forum, said that after the pandemic, we need a green recovery led by the cities. He added that given what everyone has lived through over the past year, he thinks, people are more open to make change to the way we live, the way we work and the way we move around. Manchester and other members of the 1,000 Cities project pledged to combine these two efforts first to focus “immediate benefits” on the most

vulnerable communities, including through job creation. Arnoud Molenaar, Chief Resilience Officer for Rotterdam, said that all city leaders were urging work on a resilient recovery, to work on an economic recovery but one that includes adaptation, justice and equity. Amidst the pandemic, all corners of city life - from home to office, park to pub - are undergoing a reboot, with some cities increasing parkland, others cycle lanes, and flats redesigned to work at home. The scope of the latest initiative, which was introduced in Rotterdam, a Dutch port city, is far broader than the pandemic recovery, too. Over the next few years, its work will also prioritise water resilience including how to deal with storm water, how to prepare for drought, as well as using natural systems to safeguard cities from the effects of climate change, such as reinforcing coastal areas with reefs and mangroves. But beyond these more traditional safeguards, the pandemic has boosted awareness of the vulnerability of cities to sudden health crises, said Katharine Burgess, Vice President of Urban resilience at Urban Land Institute, a think tank in Washington. She added

that the pandemic has made it clearer that society needs to be ready for major disruptions. Burgess and her colleagues last week co-published a global report on emerging best practices among cities implementing climate-planning measures, and she emphasized on the growing evidence of the broader knock-on benefits of city spending on resilience projects. She said that in southern Florida, highly vulnerable to sea-level rise, community-wide schemes offered an average 2-to-1 return on investment, citing impacts on job creation, property preservation, property taxes and more. Mark Watts, Executive Director of the nonprofit organisation C40 Cities, are now hoping to use the pandemic’s devastation to help officials focus on strengthening their communities for the long term. 17 million inhabitants in Istanbul currently fear they’ll run out of water while coping with the COVID-19 crisis. He also told the virtual summit, referring to severe water shortages in Turkey’s most populated city, that the recovery from COVID-19 really builds the foundation for resilience everywhere. (Source: Thomas Reuters Foundation)

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

BRIEFS | NEWSCAN

Assam introduces free bus service for women, senior citizens Sarbananda Sonowal, Chief Minister of Assam, on January 9, 2021, flagged off 25 Pink buses under Bhraman Sarathi Scheme, which will provide free transport service to women and senior citizens in Guwahati. The new bus service of the Assam State Transport Corporation has been introduced in a bid to make their travel safe and comfortable, thus giving a new dimension to the state government’s welfare measures in the new year. At the ceremony held at Assam Administrative Staff College at Khanapara, Sonowal requested all commuters to take care of these buses which will ply in five routes within the city of Guwahati.

PM Modi inaugurated LHPs in six states NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Light House Projects (LHPs) in six states across the nation. Chief Ministers of these six states- Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Tripura, attended the inauguration event. PM Modi said during the launch that these six projects will give a fresh boost to housing development in the country and will strengthen the concept of cooperative federalism. YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, said that the PM has the vision of providing ‘Housing for All’ by the year 2022 which is also the year when India will complete its 75 years of independence. He added that the project will be a boon for Andhra Pradesh as the state is highly prone to natural disasters like cyclones and floods.

LHPs will, for the first time, show the best usage of new-age alternate global technologies and processes in the construction industry. The project will comprise of 1,000 houses at each location with allied infrastructure facilities. It will deliver ready-to-live houses within 12 months and the facility will be better built, sustainable and durable compared to the traditional mortar and brick construction. PM Modi also conferred the winners under Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators (ASHA) - India during the occasion and also presented the annual awards for excellence in implementation of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana- Urban mission. ASHA is aiding the country in bringing research and startups in housing sector of the country.

WHO team visits Andhra as mystery illness affects 593

Hyderabad, Dubai airports unite for movement of COVID vaccines

The number of cases due to a mysterious illness in West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh reached 593 on Wednesday, December 12. The symptoms of the disease included three to five minutes of epileptic fits, forgetfulness, anxiety, vomiting, headache, etc. A team of four constituted by the National Institute of Nutrition has been appointed at Eluru and a two member team of the World Health Organisation (WHO) has also arrived in the city. 10 blood samples tested for heavy metals after the breakout found the presence of lead and nickel.

NEW DELHI: To address the challenge of moving billions of COVID-19 vaccine doses, Gandhi Mallikarjuna Rao (GMR) Hyderabad International Airport Limited, GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo, and Dubai Airports joined hands in a first of its kind initiative to construct an exclusive Vaccine Air Freight Corridor called ‘Hyderabad to Dubai global Vaccine Corridor’ (HYDXB-VAXCOR). As Hyderabad and the nearby regions are the centres for most of the vaccine manufacturers, it is expected that majority of domestically manufactured vaccines will be exported from Hyderabad airport to various parts of the world. According to a statement by GMR on Monday, January 4, a memorandum of understanding regarding the exclusive HYDXB-VAXCOR was signed by Pradeep Panicker, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), GMR Hyderabad International Airport; Saurabh Kumar, CEO-GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo; and Eugene Barry, Executive Vice President- Commercial, Dubai Airports Corporations, in a virtual ceremony held last week. Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports said that a major surge in demand for the efficient, safe and reliable global distribution of high volumes of COVID-19 vaccines is expected in the coming months. Griffiths added that as the world’s preeminent hub of choice, they wanted to be ready to respond to and accommodate that demand. This corridor is the result of a proactive strategy to be ready with innovative, collaborative and agile shipping solutions for the industry. This collaboration will release modified and uncomplicated processes and infrastructural support to streamline the journey of COVID-19 vaccine right from the manufacturing unit to the airport and logistics hub to delivery to endcustomers, the release said.

32 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

NEWSCAN | BRIEFS

Delhi to set up dedicated cell to monitor tree transplantation NEW DELHI: In view of the recently passed Tree Transplantation Policy, the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD) will launch a dedicated Tree Transplantation Cell to build technical knowledge around transplanting trees and help agencies understand the process. In accordance with the new policy, 80 per cent of all trees to be affected by a development project will have to be compulsorily replanted. The process is complicated as many transplanted trees either do not survive beyond two years or end up achieving only stunted growth. Hence, the Cell has its significance in prolonging the survival of those trees. Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi and Minister of Environment, GNCTD, met officials of Environment and Forest Department, on Wednesday, January 6, and directed them to initiate work on setting up the

Cell and build technical know-how of the transplantation process. According to a government statement, Sisodia also directed the Forest Department to begin the process of empanelment of agencies that carry out tree transplantation. The policy has however received criticism from several quarters according to which, the transplantation should be infrequent and all the developing projects must be constructed around the existing tree cover so that no area is lacking its green cover. However, according to the department officials, the policy makes it mandatory for project executing agencies to transplant trees in the vicinity of their original location to make sure that the ecology and character of the area does not change. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee has also been devising a separate policy for controlling dust at the construction sites bigger than 20,000 metre square.

Pfizer vaccine effective against mutated SARS-CoV-2 variants: Study NEW DELHI: A laboratory study conducted by the drug maker Pfizer has revealed that the COVID-19 vaccine developed by them and BioNTech is effective against the new highly transmissible mutation of the novel coronavirus discovered in South Africa and the United Kingdom (UK). The in-vitro study conducted by Pfizer and scientists from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) showed that the antibodies from people who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, effectively neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 with a key mutation that is also found in N501Y mutation’s highly transmissible strains. The study was conducted on the blood samples of people who have already been provided the vaccine shots. To determine if sera of people who had received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine could neutralize SARS-CoV-2 with the N501Y mutation, a virus with this substitution was generated in UTMB’s laboratory. The sera of 20 participants from the previously reported Phase 3 trial neutralized the virus with the mutation as well as they neutralized virus without the mutation. The findings of the study are limited as it does not test the complete set of mutations found in the new variant of novel coronavirus. Phil Dormitzer, Vaccine Scientist, Pfizer, said that the company has tested the vaccine for 16 different possible mutations and none of them had any significant impact. He added that another mutation from South Africa variant is raising concerns called the E484K mutation.

Free sanitary pads for female students in Punjab Captain Amarinder Singh, Chief Minister of Punjab, on January 8, announced an initiative taken by the Government of Punjab, which will provide free sanitary pads to girls studying in high schools and colleges across the state. The announcement was made during the launch of a bunch of welfare projects, which includes dedication of the month of January to the girl child through ‘Dheeiyan Di Lohri’ programme. Raveen Thukral, Media Advisor to the Punjab CM, tweeted about other initiatives launched by Punjab Government including ‘BASERA’ for slum dwellers, Smart Metering for power consumers, 2,500 cricket kits for young players, and EDaakhil, a registration portal for legal matters.

PM inaugurates gas pipeline for Kerala, Karnataka Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 450 kilometre (km) gas pipeline, on Tuesday, January 5, which joins Kochi with Mangalore. This project of Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) is worth Rs 3,000 crore and has brought the two states of Kerala and Karnataka closer to the National Gas Grid. The state-run gas facility has made the life of people in the state easier by giving clean fuel at affordable prices to households, city transport services and industries. The project has provided clean fuel to Dakshin Kannada district of Karnataka, and will pass through Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasaragod districts of Kerala.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

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Sewage treatment at Pune metro stations as Maha Metro signs MoU with DRDO PUNE: The Maharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Limited (Maha-Metro), on January 5, 2021, inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE) of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for adopting the Bio-digester Technology for treating all sewage generated at its metro stations and offices. The decision comes after noting efficient usage of “Biodigester Technology” in the Indian Railways and the Nagpur Metro. The Maha Metro Nagpur had adopted the above technology for achieving its environmental commitment of Zero Liquid Discharge. The bio-digester is not only ecofriendly and cost effective, but can also recycle 100 per cent of the effluent water, thus having the wastewater used for flushing and gardening. Data released by Nagpur Metro Rail in January 2020, established that recycling units in these bio-digesters installed at the metro stations recycle approximately 900 litres of water every day, at each station. According to the DRDO, the digester has two components — anaerobic microbial consortium and specially designed fermentation tank. The consortium is developed by the enrichment of bacteria at low temperatures and bio-augmentation with the critical group of bacteria. The fermentation tank (bio-digester) is a device for accelerated microbial degradation of organic waste. This tank is made up of special material and has the power of immobilising the bacteria in large numbers. This technology reduces organic waste by more than

34 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

90 per cent from the sewage collected, and reduces pathogens by more than 99 per cent. Hundreds of such bio-digesters have been installed at various locations in Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh, and hundreds of similar bio-digesters made of stainless steel are in operation in different trains of Indian Railways. They have been extensively fitted in different types of rail coaches by Indian Railways in collaboration with DRDO, which in addition to human excreta, can also be used for kitchen and animal waste disposal, and requires no sludge removal. Brijesh Dixit, Managing Director of Maha-Metro, said that adopting this technology will help conserve a significant amount of water in a state where water scarcity is increasing day by day. He added that the decision was taken after observing the bio-digester’s

accomplishment for the Nagpur Metro rail and said, “The collaboration would go a long way in achieving the objective of Pune Metro to adopt environmentally friendly measures.” Dixit mentioned that the Pune Metro is approximated to have a footfall of five lakh people daily and the Bio-digester Technology will be used at all metro stations. He said that this way, Maha-Metro will ensure that the metro does not generate sewage and burden the city’s sewage treatment plants. He added that they plan on reusing the water for flushing and floor cleaning. Earlier in 2020, the state cabinet of the Government of Maharashtra had cleared a proposal to set up sewage treatment plants in all urban local bodies in the state on the direction of the National Green Tribunal. A K Singh, Director General – Life Sciences of DRDO, said that human waste is a major challenge in developing countries and inappropriate disposal leads to contamination of water resources, including ground and drinking water, which causes many health complications and diseases. He added that this technology developed by DRDE is a great tool as it is an efficient onsite alternative to traditional sanitation techniques at a reasonably low cost. He talked about how tweaking the design makes it successful in wide geo-climatic conditions as well. Stressing on the efficiency and importance of this technology, Singh said that earlier, all the railway tracks were stinking and flooded with human waste, but railways made technology mandatory, leading to zero toilet discharge on the tracks, and now all the tracks are clean.

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‘Tamil Nadu is the most urbanised state’ CHENNAI: Edappadi K Palaniswami, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, said that Tamil Nadu is the most urbanised state of India with almost 48.45 per cent of the population living in urban areas. He added that more than 14 lakh people are living in urban slums and ‘Tamil Nadu Vision 2023’ was launched by Jayalalithaa, state’s former CM, to address their difficulties. Palaniswami thanked the Government of India for the sanction of 31,62,720 storeyed tenements and 3,42,769 individual houses with a total cost of `27,000 crore. The per unit cost of houses is `1.20 lakh which includes `72,000 from the central government and `48,000 from the state government. In addition to this, state government will grant `23,000 in wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act to the beneficiaries towards construction of toilets. Palaniswami added that, when he reviewed the scheme, he found that the present unit cost was insufficient for the poorest of the poor to construct a house, due to rise in prices and loss of livelihood due to the pandemic. Hence, he sanctioned an additional `70,000 to each house, increasing the unit cost from `1.70 lakh to `2.40 lakh. This costed the state `1,805 crore for constructing of 2.5 lakh houses. O Paneerselvam, Deputy Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and Banwarilal Purohit, Governor of Tamil Nadu also attended the virtual event. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister, government of India also laid the foundation of LHPs (Light House Projects) in Uttar Pradesh, Tripura, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Andhra Pradesh signs MoU for historic land survey VIJAYAWADA: The Government of Andhra Pradesh has exchanged a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Survey of India (SoI) for the land survey in the state. The MoU for survey named ‘YSR Jagananna Saswath Bhoo Hakku-Bhoo Raksha Pathakam’ was signed in the presence of YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. The programme was launched on December 21. Reddy said that the survey is historic as a land survey on such a large scale will be conducted for the first time in almost 100 years. He added that the details in the survey will be highly accurate with a minimum error rate of 2 centimeters (cm). State-of-the-art technologies such as rovers, drones, etc will be used for the survey. A land titling card will be provided after the survey which will consist of a unique identification number, measurements of property, name of the owner with photo and total area. Reddy added that the survey will be done across the state whether it is a house site or

an agricultural land or any real estate layout. After providing the title, the details will be mentioned for two years in the respective village secretariat to raise objections, if any. Lieutenant General Girish Kumar, Surveyor General of India, said that SoI will provide all the possible technical support for fresh mapping, integration of land records, supervision and quality control with the help of seamless geodetic infrastructure.

SC gives nod to Central Vista redevelopment project in Delhi The Supreme Court of India on January 5, 2021, gave a verdict allowing the Central Vista redevelopment project in Delhi, which has been introduced by the Government of India to redevelop the Parliament area and government offices in Lutyens Delhi. The SC gave its judgment in a batch of pleas challenging the Central Vista redevelopment project, alleging certain violations, including change in land use and environmental compliances. The judgment held that the exercise of power by Centre is fair and proper to modify the change in land use of master plan 2021. It added that the recommendations made by the environmental committee are ‘just and proper’ as well.

3 Andhra irrigation structures awarded World Heritage tag Three irrigation structures in Andhra Pradesh have been selected by the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) for World Heritage Irrigation Structures. Porumamilla Tank, Kadapa; Cumbum Tank, Prakasam and Kurnool Kadapa Canal were among the four structures chosen from India for the world heritage tag. 14 structures have been identified from around the world by ICID from several submissions made by each country. The commission has selected 14 structures, which are at least 100 years old, from across the world. Four of them are from India, including three from Andhra Pradesh and one from Maharashtra.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

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India slips two ranks in UNDP’s Human Development Index NEW DELHI: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) released the Human Development Index (HDI) for 2019 in December 2020, where India was ranked 131 of 189 nations assessed. In comparison to India’s rank in the previous year’s report, India has slipped by two ranks, although has improved its absolute value in HDI to 0.645 compared to 0.642, the previous year. Norway topped the index and Ireland, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Iceland acquired next top ranks in the index. Countries including India (131), Bangladesh (133), Pakistan (154), Bhutan (129), Nepal (142), were ranked among countries with “medium human development”. HDI measures countries’ achievement on basic aspects of human development, which includes life expectancy, education, and per capita income. The index is a summary of long-term progress assessed in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life,

36 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living. It is an assessment of a nation’s health, education and standards of living. The 2020 Human Development Report (HDR) established the life expectancy of Indians at birth in 2019 at 69.7 years, while Bangladesh had a life expectancy of 72.6 years, and Pakistan had 67.3 years. It also noted that India’s gross national income per capita has fallen to $6,681 in 2019 from $6,829 in 2018 on purchasing power parity (PPP) basis, where PPP is a measurement of prices in different countries that uses the prices of specific goods to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries’ currencies. According to the report, native children in Cambodia, India and Thailand show increased malnutritionrelated issues such as stunting and wasting. It added that parents in India differ in their responses and behaviour, and exhibit some disinvestment in girls’ health and education, which ultimately

has led to higher malnutrition among girls than among boys. HDR also said that the assessment of countries such as India and Colombia presents that financial security and ownership of land has been improving women’s security and reducing the risk of gender-based violence, which clearly indicated that financial independence and ownership of land can empower women. Under the Paris Agreement, India had pledged to reduce the emission intensity of its gross domestic product by 33–35 per cent by 2030, and to obtain 40 per cent of electric power capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030 as well. The report said that as part of the plan, India’s National Solar Mission aims to promote solar energy for power generation and other uses to make solar energy competitive with fossil fuel-based options. It added that solar capacity in India has increased from 2.6 gigawatts in March 2014 to 30 gigawatts in July 2019, thus achieving its target of 20 gigawatts, four years ahead of schedule. The report also mentioned that India has ranked fifth for installed solar capacity in 2019. The report underlined that only 21.2 per cent of the total labour force in India is skilled, and the nation has a rate of child marriage still standing at 27 per cent. India is still facing a considerable amount of inequality in education, which stands at 38.7 per cent, according to the data released by UNDP in the report. Shoko Noda, UNDP India Resident Representative, praised India’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions and initiatives taken for green energy and said that India is currently at a position from where it can help other nations too. She added that the drop in India’s ranking does not mean that India did not perform well, but other countries did better.

City Image

How much space we give to our roads! This brilliant illustration, made by Swedish artist Karl Jilg and commissioned by the Swedish Road Administration, shows just how extreme the situation truly is wherein most city roads are designed keeping cars in mind. The work recently won the second place in the 2020 edition of the Powerful Mobility Memes Awards, organised by the Urban Cycling Institute. In the image, Jilg depicts city streets as gorges, crosswalks as wobbly planks, and sidewalks as shallow ledges to show how little space pedestrians are allowed to inhabit in a typical intersection.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

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WFH is still the first choice of majority: Cisco study Indian employees like the advantages of ‘increased autonomy’, ‘dispersed the team’ effect, and ‘faster decisionmaking’, that work-from-home regime brought with itself. Now, most of them want to stay in the work-from-home regime in 2021 as well, said Cisco Systems. According to a Cisco study titled ‘Workforce of the Future’, approximately 90 per cent of Indian employees are comfortable with a hybrid work model in the future. More than 14,000 participants across 14 markets in the Asia Pacific, including more than 1,000 participants from India, were part of the study.

Wi-Fi networks to be set up across India

The Cabinet of Government of India approved a proposal by the Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom (MeitY) to set up public WiFi access networks across the country. The Wi-Fi access points will be called PM Wi-Fi Access Network Interface, or PMWANI. According to a statement by Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of MeitY, public data centres will be opened across the country without any license fee or registration. Experts believe this model will prove to be a revenue lifeline for firms likes BSNL and would mean optimum use of their optical fiber infrastructure.

38 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

Report finds plastics disrupting endocrine health in people NEW DELHI: Researchers from the Endocrine Society and the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN) published a report outlining various ways through which a person is exposed to plastics in such a way that it disrupts their endocrine system. Exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can intensify or directly cause many health problems in a person, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer of few types. The report highlighted that more than 1000 chemicals, widely in use today are EDCs and are typically present in plastics that we use, which has the potential to leech into a person’s body. These EDCs containing plastics are sizably found in children’s toys, packaging, food production, furniture, electrical goods, textiles, cosmetics, cookware, healthcare settings, and vehicles. The lead author of the report, Prof Jodi Flaws, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in Urbana, said that many of the plastics that we use every day at home and work are continuously exposing us to a harmful cocktail of EDCs. She added, “Definitive action is needed on a global

level to protect human health and our environment from these threats.” The Endocrine Society through the report highlighted that people can try to reduce their exposure to EDCs by learning which products typically contain these chemicals and finding replacements for those products. Pamella Miller, cochair, IPEN, said that it is imperative that global policies to reduce and eliminate EDCs from plastic and reduce exposures from plastic recycling, plastic waste, and incineration are introduced. She said that this particular report puts in view the current acceleration of plastic production, which is projected to increase by 36 per cent in next 6 years, which in turn will exacerbate EDC exposures and rising global rates of endocrine diseases.

European countries to fund green projects in Kerala KOCHI: France, Germany and the European Union (EU) have filed a detailed plan to fund more eco-friendly projects in Kerala in the coming years to support the city in protecting the environment. Emmanuel Lenain, French Ambassador to India; Walter J Lindner, German Ambassador to India; and Ugo Astuto, Ambassador of EU to India, were on a joint visit to Kochi. The visit marked the fifth anniversary of Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Lenain said that they will select the most innovative, environmentally green and gender-oriented projects to work towards mobility and transportation to curb carbon emission. Astuto added, “We will support eco-friendly projects in all of Kerala and not only in Kochi. EU, with the co-operation of Germany and France, will discuss and decide the projects.” Astuto said that the EU has already finalised on the financial package for supporting the projects in which, 30 per cent has been assigned for the projects which will directly address environmental issues. He also added that these eco-friendly projects will become the real drivers of growth and sustainable employment generation. The ambassadors reviewed the work of Kochi Metro Rail Ltd (KMRL) on Water Metro project financed by Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KFW), a German Investment Bank. Lindner pointed out that Kochi is a big city and should have an integrated transport system with last mile connectivity.

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H5N1 Bird flu outbreak in India NEW DELHI: In a press release issued on January 6, 2021, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairy, informed that samples from the states of Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh (HP) and Kerala have been tested positive for avian influenza, confirming the outbreak of bird flu in these states. The tests were conducted by both the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The statement further said that in Rajasthan and MP, bird flu has been identified in crows while in HP, bird flu is reported in migratory birds. In Kerala, cases of bird flu have been reported in poultry ducks of Kottayam and Allapuzha districts. The ministry has issued an advisory to these states, asking them to act according to the guidelines of the National Action Plan of Avian influenza. Apart from this, the government has set up a control room in Delhi to take a stock of the situation daily. This control room would also help in undertaking preventive and control measures against bird flu in these states. K Raju, Minister of Forests, Wildlife Protection, Animal husbandry, Dairy Development, Milk- Co-operatives and Zoos, Kerala, said that around 1,200 duck have died and 4,000 birds will be culled in the region where bird flu is reported. Prem Singh Patel, Minister of Animal Husbandry of MP, said an alert has been sounded to control the spread of bird flu in the state. Bird Flu or H5N1 virus has killed 2,403 migratory birds in HP, after which the Animal Husbandry Department of HP has closed poultry markets and banned the sale of eggs. Lachand Kataria, Minister of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry & Fisheries, informed that more than 50 birds have been found dead in a single district till date. After the issuance of this advisory,

several states which were earlier reporting deaths of crows and migratory birds quickly had their samples tested for the virus. On January 7, 2021, Maharashtra Government issued a red alert in the state and ordered district officials to keep a strict vigil on bird deaths. The government admitted that managing the outbreak of another virus would be difficult for the state, considering the delicate situation of Coronavirus. According to a statement from the Punjab government, the entire state of Punjab has been declared as a controlled state starting from January 9. Also, complete ban has been placed on the import of any processed and unprocessed poultry meat in the state until January 15. The government said that decisions would be reviewed in accordance with the evolving situation in the state. These decisions were taken after consultation with Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Minister of Animal Husbandry, Government of Punjab. The Government of Delhi completely banned the import of live

birds into the city on January 9, 2021, after reviewing the outbreak of bird flu in the neighbouring states. According to Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi, there have been no reports of the disease in the city even after analysing more than 100 samples from various parts of the state. Around 100 crows died in the past 3â&#x20AC;&#x201C;4 days in the city and the incident was investigated by a rapid response team. The CM said that a surveillance team has been set up under the supervision of District Magistrate in every district of Delhi. The government has also closed poultry markets of Ghazipur for 10 days. As the anxiety of avian influenza spreads, there is a fear of a fresh blow to the poultry industry. Various markets are reporting incidents of people giving up chicken and eggs, which is causing a fall in prices. In a bid to quell this anxiety, the Ministry of Environment has said that infections in humans have not been reported in India yet. There is also no evidence of H5N1 virus being transferred to humans through the consumption of poultry products.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

BRIEFS | NEWSCAN

HelpAge India receives ‘2020 UN Population’ Award

United Nations General Assembly honored HelpAge India, a non-governmental organisaion with the ‘2020 UN Populations Award’ at a virtual ceremony. The award is recognition of the organization’s contribution towards serving the disadvantaged elderly and raising awareness on the cause of the elderly. With this, HelpAge India became the first ever Indian organisation to receive the award in institutional category. Kiran Karnik, Chairperson, HelpAge India, said that this recognition by the UN has not only made the organisation proud, but has inspired and motivated them further to continue doing what they know best, which is to help those in need.

Karnataka govt to solve Bengaluru garbage problem in 2 years The Government of Karnataka has claimed that it will mitigate the garbage problem of the capital in the coming two years. The state government, in a written reply, said that five waste-to-energy plants will be built in the city for efficient waste management. JC Madhuswamy, Minister of Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Government of Karnataka, said that out of 5,000 tonnes of waste in the city, almost 4,000 tonnes will be treated in these plants, which will convert it into power or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for the state.

40 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

India all set for COVID-19 vaccination drive NEW DELHI: As India was gearing up for its vaccination drive, the Government of India had announced that it will deploy its vast election machinery to deliver 60 crore doses of COVID vaccines to 30 crore Indians. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) issued a draft of standard operating procedures (SOP) to all the states and union territories and stated that at least 100 people should get vaccinated each day at every site. Dr VK Paul, Niti Aayog member and head of National Expert Group on COVID-19 vaccination, said that the central government has lined up cold storage facilities with temperatures between 2 to 8 degrees Celsius and that the capacity of the syringes and needles have also been built up to the store. According to the plan developed by MoHFW, the coronavirus vaccine will be first given to health care workers, frontline workers, and people above 50 years. After this, vaccines are to be given to those who are below 50 years of age and are suffering from a chronic critical illness. The rest of the population will be given COVID-19 vaccine whenever it will be ready for public use, keeping in view the spread and availability of the disease. The government is planning on identifying those above 50 years of age based on the voter list prepared in the Lok Sabha elections and assembly elections. The SOP by MoHFW also mentioned that the beneficiaries of the vaccine will be tracked through a digital platform called Co-WIN. All information on this platform will be updated in real time.

Over 60% women in 12 states never used Internet: Survey NEW DELHI: The latest data from the fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) revealed that over 60 per cent of women in 12 states and union territories (UT) have never used internet. In more than 10 states in India, less than 40 per cent of women have used the internet including Andhra Pradesh (21 per cent), Assam (28.2 per cent), Bihar (20.6 per cent), etc. In comparison to this, more men have used the internet in same states, Andhra Pradesh (48.8 per cent), Assam (42.3 per cent), Bihar (43.6 per cent), etc. A total of 28 states and UTs were surveyed across the country. According to the findings of the survey, states such as Andhra Pradesh (68.6 per cent), Bihar (57.8 per cent) and Telangana (66.6 per cent) have recorded lowest literacy rates among women. Whereas, Kerala (98.3 per cent), Lakshadweep (96.5 per cent), and Mizoram (94.4 per cent) have recorded the highest literacy among women in all the surveyed states and UTs. The survey points out that less than 40 per cent women had received 10 or more years of schooling in eight states and UTs

including Andhra Pradesh (39.6 per cent), Assam (29.6 per cent ), Bihar (28.8 per cent), etc. The NFHS-5 examined almost 6.1 lakh sample households, including interviews to collect information on population, health, family planning and nutrition. In Phase-1, the data from 17 states and UTs have been released and Phase-2 with the data from other states will be released next year. According to the NFHS-5 data, literacy refers to women or men who have completed standard 9 or higher and who can read a whole sentence or part of a sentence. Women literacy is an important issue in the country as they constitute the building blocks of the nation.

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Declare climate emergency: Guterres to world leaders Anotnio Guterres, Secretary General, United Nations, while giving his opening remarks in the climate summit held virtually on December 12, urged world leaders to declare states of “climate emergency” in their countries until carbon neutrality is achieved worldwide. He added that there is need for impetus in bringing action to avoid catastrophic global warming. He mentioned that the economic recovery packages launched in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic represented an opportunity to accelerate the transition to a lowcarbon future.

Improve infant mortality but malnutrition worsened: NFHS

Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Health and Family welfare (MoHFW), released the fifth National Family Health Survey (NFHS) on December 12. The survey details information on Indian states and union territories’ (UT) population, health, and nutrition. The survey revealed that the mortality rate of infants and those less than five years of age has fallen in 18 states and UTs out of the total 22 surveyed. However, 16 of the states surveyed reported rise in the percentage of children who are under five years of age, who are severely underweight and wasted (low weight for height among children under five).

42 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

India deliberating on E20 fuel to cut vehicular emissions NEW DELHI: The Government of India has proposed adoption of E20 fuel, which is a blend of 20 per cent of ethanol and gasoline, to reduce vehicular emissions. With adoption of E20 fuel as an automobile fuel, the government aims to reduce one of the major causes of air pollution in India, which is vehicular emission. This will also reduce country’s import bill thereby saving foreign exchange and boosting energy security. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) had released a notification inviting comments from the public on adoption of the E20 fuel. Ethanol is a biofuel and a common byproduct of biomass left by agricultural feedstock. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of MoRTH, stressed on the significance of

the move and said that it aims to promote green fuel like ethanol and to reduce India’s huge crude import dependence, worth `8 lakh crore. An official statement from the MoRTH said that the vehicle manufacturer shall be the one to define compatibility of the vehicle to the percentage of ethanol in the blend of ethanol and gasoline and the same shall be displayed on the vehicle by putting a clearly visible sticker. Currently, only 10% of ethanol blend is permissible in India. However, in 2019, it only reached 5.6%. The statement issued by the ministry states “E20 will help in reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons, etc. It will also help reduce the oil import bill, thereby saving foreign exchange and boosting energy security.”

Ghaziabad to introduce ropeway system

NEW DELHI: The Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) has decided to develop aerial urban passenger ropeway links. The links will provide improved short-distance mode of transportation and also act as feeders for the metro system in the city. GDA officials on Friday, December 18, said that they wrote an Expression of Interest (EOI) for the development of a techno-feasibility study and a Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project. Generally, the ropeway is a transport system used in mountains or mines for ferrying goods or people. The carrier cars are suspended with the help of moving cables which are powered by a motor system. Such systems are already in operation in Haridwar and have been proposed for Ayodhya as well. Kanchan Verma, Vice-Chairperson of GDA, said that Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, recently directed authorities to find alternative models for local transportation. Hence, ropeway system was planned to be introduced. Its cost per kilometre is approximated at `35-70 crore. She also added that the EOI had been floated and as soon as DPR is prepared, it will be sent to the state government. Asheesh Shivpuri, chief architect and town planner, GDA, said that the commuters face daily hassles, and this is the reason why the authority has decided to introduce the ropeway system. He added, “It requires less funding and takes less space compared to metro in terms of land.” He cited the example of the New Bus Adda metro towards Ghaziabad railway station, which has less space and is highly congested, and since there is a flyover at the central verge of the Adda, the metro line cannot be extended. Therefore, he said that the ropeway system will be more appropriate and will be cheaper than the metro system.

NEWSCAN | BRIEFS

Arya Rajendran becomes youngest mayor of India, creates history T H I RU VA NA N T H A P U R A M : Anavoor Nagappan, District Secretary, Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), announced on Sunday, December 27, that Arya Rajendran will be the Mayor of the City Corporation. She will be the youngest in the country to take the chair. She was elected as the ward councillor from Mudavanmugal in the recent civic body polls. She was the youngest candidate CPI (M) fielded for the local body elections in 2020. A member of CPI (M) said that her father is an electrician and her mother is a Life Insurance Corporation agent. Both of them have been the member of the party for a long time. Arya is a student of Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) at All Saints College. She said that she had been attending the party programmes with her father since she was five years of age. She was active with the work of Balasangam, children’s organization affiliated to CPI (M) and she became its

state president. She was the member and worker of Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in college. Arya said that waste management is the foremost focus of her ward as well as whole city. In the times of COVID-19 it is important that there is a Public Health Care (PHC) at ward level. She added that people are afraid to go to government hospitals, especially those with non-COVID disease so it is important to have a 24-hours functioning PHC which is accessible to everyone.

World’s largest electric scooter factory to be set up in Tamil Nadu Government of Tamil Nadu has signed an agreement with Ola on Monday, December 14, to set up its first electric scooter factory worth `2,400 crore. A statement issued by Ola mentioned that in line with the vision of Government of India, the factory is an important initiative towards making an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’. The project will reduce the country’s dependency on imports in various sectors such as electric vehicles. It will also boost the local manufacturing sector, create jobs and will improve the technical expertise of the country, the statement added. The factory will also create around 10,000 jobs.

Rajasthan CM grants ` 108 crore for MGNREGA

Karnataka govt to create 13,000 jobs BENGALURU: Five projects with an investment of `26,659 crore have been cleared by the State High-Level Clearance Committee (SHLCC) headed by B S Yediyurappa, Chief Minister, Government of Karnataka. The projects are expected to create employment for 13,341 people in the state. The SHLCC meet was held on Monday, December 21, where the clearance was given to four companies, including Elest Pvt Ltd, Hyunet Pvt Ltd, Miraculum Green Power Pvt Ltd, and Sanali Power Pvt Ltd. Elest Pvt Ltd has planned to set up an electric vehicle manufacturing unit in HubballiDharwad with an investment of `14,255 crore. The unit will be built on 85 acres of land and will create more than 850 jobs. The company has also received the permission to create a Lithium-ion cells & battery manufacturing unit on 88 acres in HubballiDharwad with an investment of `6,339 crore. It is expected to generate almost 1,800 jobs. Hyunet Pvt Ltd is cleared to set up a manufacturing plant for electric vehicles and lithium batteries on 300 acres in Chikkaballapura with an investment of `1,825 crore creating 2,210 jobs. Miraculum Green Power Pvt Ltd was given the clearance to set up a wind-solar power project with a capacity of 110-Megawatt (MW) and an investment of `1,290 crore. It will be established in Jagalur taluk of Devanagere and is likely to create 2,820 jobs. Sanali Power Pvt Ltd will also set up a hybrid wind-solar power project on 1,710 acres of land in Jagalur taluk with an investment of `2,950 crore. This project is expected to create 5,640 jobs.

Ashok Gehlot, Chief Minister of Rajasthan, has sanctioned an additional allocation of approximately `427 crore for several schemes of the state government, in addition to Rs 108 crore under the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act. This approval also includes an additional provision of `33.10 crore that has been granted for the scooty distribution scheme to meritorious girl students with the intention of promoting girls’ education. Gehlot has also approved an additional provisional of `16.13 crore for organising various recruitment examinations to the Rajasthan Staff Selection Board.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

BRIEFS | NEWSCAN

GoI and World Bank sign $400-mn project to protect the poor The Government of India and World Bank have signed a project worth $400 million to support India in its efforts for providing assistance to the poor and vulnerable, who were impacted by COVID-19. This is the second operation in the series of two projects and the first one, worth $750 million was approved in May 2020. This will strengthen the capacity of state and central governments to provide coordinated social protection to the poor and vulnerable from the shocks of pandemic. C S Mohapatra, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, said that the crisis has brought the struggles and risks of migrants and urban poor to the front.

ITC targeting to produce 100% electricity from renewable sources by 2030 ITC Limited announced on January 6, 2021, that it is aiming to meet 100 per cent of its electricity requirements from renewable sources by 2030. This investment is a part of Sustainability 2.0 vision of ITC which aims to contribute to the fight against climate change. As part of this initiative, ITC has been rigorously expanding its renewable energy footprint in the past two decades. In order to mitigate climate change risks, ITC, with this project, is aiming to achieve 50 per cent reduction in specific emission and 30 per cent reduction in specific energy consumption by 2023. This project of ITC will also be beneficial for India’s target of achieving 450 Gegawatt (GW) of renewable energy consumption by 2022.

44 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

J&K will train 35K youth under ATAL Yojana JAMMU AND KASHMIR: A statement released by an official from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) administration said that they will cover over 35,000 youths for entrepreneur skill development under the Accelerated Transformation of Aspirations and Livelihoods for Youth (ATAL) Yojana within a duration of four years between 2021 and 2024. While chairing a meeting with officers of J&K Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI) and Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Manoj Sinha, Lieutenant Governor of J&K, said, “J&K administration is focussing on creating a robust ecosystem in the union territory for growth and empowerment of entrepreneurs, and laying a strong foundation to nurture entrepreneurship abilities in youth.” The project aims to create 10,000 Conventional Tiny Enterprises (CTE) and more than 1,000 Impact Making Enterprises (IME), covering 20 districts

to generate around 1 lakh direct or indirect employment. The Lieutenant Governor asked the officers concerned in the meeting to identify potential sectors for growth and expansion in entrepreneurship. The J&K government is hoping that the initiative will make a big impact in mainstreaming entrepreneurship among local youth, strengthen community development, help in employment generation, boost economic growth by introducing new technologies, innovation and services.

India to launch first Social Impact Bond after PCMC signs MoU with UNDP PIMPRI-CHINCHWAD: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) to create India’s first Social Impact Bond (SIB). With this unique investment tool, PCMC will only have to bear the costs of a public welfare project associated with the SIB given that the pre-defined project targets are fulfilled. This is the first time when a government body will act as an outcome funder in a bond. The SIB lays down outcome based targets, which are to be achieved at the start of the contract. This allows tracking of the progress achieved and outcomes, thereby ensuring transparency for the investors. The mechanism ensures effective and efficient use of funds towards the projects as well. An official release stated that SIB will support the PCMC in improving healthcare services for its citizens, while incurring minimum investment risks. Sharan Hardikar, Commissioner, PCMC, commented that the SIB places PCMC at the forefront of adopting innovative mechanisms to drive social development. He said, “This is in line with our vision of making Pimpri-Chinchwad the most liveable city in India by 2030.” Dr Manish Pant, Chief, Health and Governance, UNDP India, added that health plays a critical role in achieving sustainable development. He said, “We hope that this will lead to the development of a successful public healthcare model that will ultimately address the city strategy objectives of PCMC.” PCMC is currently operating 30 plus primary, secondary and tertiary level healthcare facilities with an aggregate 1,500-bed capacity. These facilities have been crucial in addressing the health crisis during the pandemic. The SIB will allow PCMC to not only upgrade the infrastructure but also build the capacity of its staff and establish protocols that can support higher quality healthcare.

NEWSCAN | BRIEFS

Alarming rise in black fungal infection NEW DELHI: After Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) in New Delhi reported cases of rare black fungal infections in patients of COVID-19, hospitals from several other cities in the country have reported similar cases. Doctors have identified the disease as Mucormyosis, which is rare but not new, and affects people who are under medication or are suffering from some illness as their immunity remains in a compromised state. The infection affects the sinuses or the lungs if the fungus enters through inhaling. It can also enter the skin through a cut, burn or any other type of skin injury, but is not contagious. If not

detected early, it can kill half the patients, lead to loss of vision or jaw in others, and cause meningitis if it spreads to the brain. Symptoms of mucormycosis include one-sided facial swelling, nasal or sinus congestion, black lesions on nasal bridge or on upper inside of mouth, etc. Dr Manish Munjal, senior surgeon at SGRH, said that the occurrence of COVID-19 triggered Mucormycosis with high morbidity and mortality is alarming. According to a report by India Today, the national capital has registered at least 44 cases of Mucormycosis, out of which nine patients have died. He added that early clinical suspicion on symptoms should prompt a biopsy and start of the antifungal therapy as early as possible for timely intervention can prevent complications like removal of jaws or disembowelment of the eye. Similar precautions as of COVID-19 like wearing masks and gloves can go a long way in protecting oneself from the fungal infection.

Sisodia gives smart devices to students NEW DELHI: In an attempt to make online classes accessible to all the students, Manish Sisodia, Deputy Chief Minister of Delhi, distributed 1,059 tables to students on Thursday, December 3, asking them to pursue their education without any obstacle during the ongoing pandemic. These tablets have been arranged by the Tata PowerDelhi Distribution Limited and Bombay Suburban Electric Supply (BSES). The tablets were given out at an event organised at Government Savodaya Vidyalaya, Shalimar Bagh. During the event, Sisodia said that the vaccine for COVID-19 will be released soon around the world and this pandemic will merely be a matter of history. He added that however, the loss of education that students are facing because of the ongoing pandemic cannot be compensated by any vaccine, and therefore to lessen the loss, Delhi government is working relentlessly to find solutions. Sisodia also asked the students to use the tablets for their benefit in studies and return it to

their school after the examinations so as the other students in need can also gain from it. Sisodia on December 22, also distributed 230 smartphones among students studying in classes 9 to 12 of the Government Sarvodaya Co-ed Secondary Vidyalaya in Rohini. The devices were collected with the help of civil society members to help students in attending online classes, which have been going on since March 2020. Sisodia commented that the education sector has received the hardest blow by the pandemic. He added that a lot of students have been unable to access online classes because of lack of devices and networks. He thanked organisations, volunteers, and citizens in helping the government mobilise the plan of getting devices and distributing them to students to minimize the loss that students and their education have taken due to the pandemic. He said, “These are symbols of the collective goodness of people coming together in such dire times.”

TENDER NOTICE All India Institute of Local Self Government invites sealed tenders in Two-Bids (Technical & Financial) for 1) Printing items 2) Stationery and general items, on need basis for the calendar year 2021 or so. The complete sealed tender should reach to the Director General, All India Institute of Local Self Government, M.N.Roy Human Development Campus, Opp.Teachers Colony, Bandra-East, Mumbai-400 051 latest by 15.00 hrs. on 29th January 2021. Details of the Tenders and procedure of submission etc. are available on www.aiilsg.org and also at Institute's office at Bandra (East)

Email: admin@aiilsg.org Contact Nos. & 86576 22552 & 86576 22554 & 86576 22550

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches National Common Mobility Card

Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, via video conferencing launched “National Common Mobility Card” (NCMC), under his “One Nation One Mobility Card” initiative, on December 28, 2020. NCMC will serve as an automatic fare collection (AFC) system for Delhi Metro’s Airport Express Line, and will eventually be made available across the whole network of Delhi Metro. NCMC will allow passengers with RuPay debit cards, issued in the last 18 months by 23 banks, to be swiped for Metro travels. The difference between NCMC cards and other metro cards is that NCMC cards can be used across all transit systems.

www.urbanupdate.in | January 2021

Urban Agenda

Cities need to manage COVID waste smartly Waste management has become one of the biggest challenges that the world is yet to conquer collectively. While some countries have adopted smart waste management solutions, others struggle to handle the garbage piles lining big cities worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has only added to this chaos and made it tougher to handle

Ashok Wankhadel Managing Editor

Government of India, under the Environment Protection Act 1986, enacted various waste management rules in 2016. Since then, local governments across the country have been trying to find ways of incorporating smart waste management solutions in their waste management processes. In addition to this, the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has also, in a way, focused greatly on waste management and disposal. However, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that one type of waste would become a bigger problem for authorities than others – domestic bio-medical waste. As scientists suggested using masks and gloves wherever possible to stay safe from COVID-19 infection, the markets flooded with various types of face masks and plastic gloves. These masks, which were initially majorly made of plastic, started being used on a large scale by the general public. This meant that the amount of plastic waste coming from domestic sources increased manifold. Since the coronavirus is highly transmissible, the disposed masks and gloves fell under the ‘domestic bio-medical waste’ category. Therefore, their segregation and disposal were to be taken up separately by municipal authorities and local governments. Additionally, our frontline workers comprising doctors, policemen, sanitation workers etc., also used personal protective equipment (PPE) kits on a large scale for their own and the patients’ safety. These PPE kits, made up of polypropylene – a type of plastic, were for one-time use only and therefore were changed every day. This, in turn, further added to the excessive amounts of plastic waste that was being generated, particularly during the COVID-19 nationwide lockdown. According to a recent report by the Central Pollution Control Board, India generated 33,000 tonnes of COVID-19 biomedical waste in the past seven months. With the sudden increase in plastic waste, various local governments found segregation of domestic bio-medical waste difficult. Thus, this waste was disposed with the rest of the waste and often led to the spread of infection among sanitation workers and those involved in waste disposal. So far, most urban local bodies (ULBs) in India use incineration to dispose of plastic waste. Since most incinerators are not maintained well, they end up polluting the environment by releasing harmful gasses, thereby adding to air pollution in many cities.

Action by ULBs

As soon as the ULBs had the opportunity to attend to the issue of waste management, local bodies like the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation introduced initiatives of segregating COVID-19 waste at the source by adding separate compartments/bins in their garbage collections vehicles. This immensely helped the residents in disposing off COVID waste responsibly. They also engaged in spreading awareness about the importance of handling COVID waste responsibly. With the Drug Controller General of India granting emergency use authorisation to two COVID-19 vaccine candidates – Covaxin and Covishield, state and local governments across the country have sprung into action to prepare for the world’s largest vaccination drive. While many cities have already collected large quantities of needles, syringes, and blood bags in preparation for the vaccination drive, not many have a strict waste management plan in place. Here, authorities must learn from the past and quickly work on putting in place a waste tracking procedure so that COVID-19 related equipment can be tracked from their procurement to their disposal, thus ensuring safe waste management and minimising further spread of the virus.

46 January 2021 | www.urbanupdate.in

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Urban Update January 2021

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India begins world’s largest vaccination drive